Introduction

Advancements in artificial intelligence technology are changing the picture of human life on Earth. Long thought of as a way for machines to assume some of the heavy lifting associated with human labor, AI technology has shown itself capable of exceeding the limitations of human beings and behaving in ways that were once the realm of science fiction. AI technology has evolved so quickly that the definition of artificial intelligence has had to change to accommodate the barriers that this type of technology is continually exceeding. Basic algorithms that were once perceived as remarkable examples of AI are now considered by some not to be AI at all as artificial neural networks and machine learning allow AI technology to supersede human capabilities.

Artificial intelligence technology has become so common in business that many people do not realize that AI is already a part of their lives. Businesses use AI to analyze consumer purchasing behavior and make recommendations for businesses as well as to market products to consumers based on an understanding of the consumer. AI technology has been combined with other advancements to allow businesses to market products in new ways and remain competitive. AI technology has also been marketed to consumers in the form of applications like Siri and Alexa that make use of AI's ability to process language.

Indeed, language processing represents an application of AI technology that will be familiar to many readers. Language processing also represents one of the more powerful applications of this technology. Artificial intelligence agents can be programmed to receive sensory information, and that includes speech in various forms. This type of technology can also be built with machine learning that allows it to understand things like language better over time. AI technology is not only able to understand language and complete a task based on the language, but to respond with appropriate language.

This type of language used by artificial intelligence reflects human-like artificial intelligence, an area of AI that has grown significantly in recent years. The reality is that the consumer who interacts with AI technology wants to feel as if they are interacting with another human being. This means that the AI needs to be able to understand the peculiarities of speech that characterize individualistic human language, and they need to be able to respond with speech that feels natural. The ability for AI to meet these requirements represents how far AI has come since its early days in the 1950s.

Indeed, the antecedents of modern-day artificial intelligence technology were the computers which were involved in codebreaking during the Second World War. Codebreaking was an important activity as it allowed countries at war to break the cipher of their enemies and understand their movements. So British codebreakers were able to decipher German code to learn where the Germans planned to strike next or how many troops they had at their disposal. Computers were helpful here as their computational ability allowed them to recognize and decipher patterns that would pose quite a challenge for most humans.

One of the most well-known codebreakers of the period was Alan Turing, an important name in early computer science. Turing is famous today not only because of the contributions he made towards advancing the fields of computer science and artificial intelligence, but because he came up with a famous test, the so-called Turing Test, which sought to determine if a computer could think like a human being. Even in these early days of computer science, scientists and engineers were predicting a future in which machines would be called upon to not only handle the manual labor of human beings but to tackle the nuances of human cognition.

In Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Business: Approach for Beginners to AI and Machine Learning and their Revolution of Modern Life, Health Care, Business and Marketing the reader will learn how theories of AI in these early days have helped to create the modern advancements that characterize AI today. In fact, even science fiction has helped to push the boundaries of what is possible with artificial intelligence by presenting speculative goals for computer scientists and engineers. The stories and movies that explore the idea of the thinking machine present opportunities for scientists to see if machines really can do what writers and movie producers fear they can.

The truth is, much of present-day discussion of artificial intelligence is characterized by fear. Men and women today fear not only that AI technology will replace their jobs, but that AI may eventually take over. This idea of AI or robot takeover was a popular one to explore in the 60s and 70s, an age when men and women saw how the world was changing around them and began to speculate what the future would look like. Indeed, just as men and women in various countries were fighting for their freedom and civil rights, they also began to imagine that one day even machines may have to fight for rights in a world controlled by humans.

The field of robot ethics and machine ethics evolved in subsequent decades as a way of examining the rights that intelligent machines would need in a human society and the rights of humans that would have to be safeguarded in a world of intelligent machines. Both of these subjects represent how important ethical concerns are in artificial intelligence. Indeed, there are worries that as AI technology has advanced so quickly, ethicists and lawmakers will not be able to keep up with the issues that evolve. Issue of privacy, government surveillance, and just what companies that use AI do with all that data are very important in the AI discussion, and all of this will be explored in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Business: Approach for Beginners to AI and Machine Learning and their Revolution of Modern Life, Health Care, Business and Marketing.

The critical nature of data is an aspect of artificial intelligence that it is often easy for a beginner in the study of AI to overlook. Data is the basic unit of AI as it is the stuff that AI technology uses in its algorithms in machine learning and which AI stores and manipulates in various ways in artificial neural networks. Data is also the big driver for business advancements in AI. Businesses like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Apple, have ample stores of data, and AI allows them to use that data in ways that benefits both the business and the customer. A basic understanding of how AI agents use data is critical in understanding AI, and this will be explored as you read further.

AI uses data definitions in order to understand what to do with data. Machine learning algorithms that allow artificial intelligence programs to improve their performance over time require that AI technology is able to store large amounts of data and to create complex frameworks using that data. This means that something as straightforward as cloud-based storage systems become important in artificial intelligence as it allows businesses to put all of their company's data in one place so that the AI technology can access it and perform operations on it. These operations can include making forecasts, monitoring equipment, monitoring employee performance, and making recommendations for customers.

Businesses, therefore, have many benefits to gain from understanding artificial intelligence and putting it to use in their operations. Indeed, a business that does not have a basic understanding of AI runs the risk of falling behind their competitors and being edged out in an increasingly cutthroat business climate. Because using AI can be as simple as putting your data on a cloud, there is little reason for businesses not to take advantage of AI. Indeed, thinking about how to use AI in business often forces companies to look at how they keep data and whether they are recording all of the data points that they should be.

If we think of artificial intelligence as the ability of machines to learn and to think like human beings, then a business that uses AI has a new employee that can potentially contribute to the business in ways that other employees cannot. Indeed, it was recognized pretty early on in computer science that one-day computers and AI would likely exceed the cognitive potential of human beings. The idea that one day machine might exceed the cumulative thinking capacity of human beings is known as singularity, and it is an event that some speculators on AI fear as they believe it represents the end of human life.

Whether or not these fears surrounding AI advancements are warranted is an important subject in the AI discussion. As advancements in quantum computing render the capacities of AI my powerful, this future in which computers powered with AI and machine learning draws ever closer. Many of the early minds in this field, scientists who programmed computers to learn from their opponent's chess moves so that they could beat them at chess, these individuals could hardly have imagined that a world in which computers had exceeded human cognition and were thinking for human beings was so near.

Before one can understand the truth regarding fears about AI technology, it is important to understand what artificial intelligence refers to. Indeed, the terms artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning are frequently used in the media when dealing with AI, but many readers without a background in the field are at a loss when it comes to an understanding what these terms mean. In the first chapter, the concepts will be defined, and history of artificial intelligence technology will...