Communications of the ACM
AI Gets Its Groove Back
The field of artificial intelligence is making real progress, following a long period of sporadic advances.
Credit: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters
The field of artificial intelligence (AI) is finally making real progress after a long period of sporadic advances that failed to pan out into major successes.
"AI has reached an inflection point" thanks to the availability of massive volumes of online data and inexpensive computational power, says Narrative Science co-founder Kris Hammond. "We now see it emerging from a substrate of research, data analytics, and machine learning, all enabled by our ability to deal with large masses of data."
Experts also believe better algorithms will further AI's progress, with the widespread use of the deep-learning algorithm expected to be a major driver.
Yann LeCun with Facebook's AI Group says the algorithm offers a means to more fully automate machine learning by using multiple layers of analysis that can compare their outcomes with other layers.
Another example of AI's progress is Google's translation page, in which an AI program sifts through millions of already translated documents for patterns between the original and translated versions, says Machine Intelligence Research Institute executive director Luke Muehlhauser.
As for the future, some experts speculate AI technology will eventually yield a machine that can mimic a human, if the field's future advances matches previous progress.
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