Will AI be able to live up to its hype?
- Jun 13, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 22, 2021
Artificial Intelligence: Hype vs Reality
Artificial Intelligence is exponentially being embedded with the things we use daily. From setting alarms on Siri to being corrected by autocorrect as we type a message–we’re surrounded! The technologies used in the making of AI are becoming advanced over time, with increased capabilities.
Over the past years, our world has gone through drastic changes. There have been hysterical debates around what Artificial Intelligence will bring to the tables soon and how it will change the way industry’s function.
AI-centric conversations rose to the internet and on social media, it became a frequently spoken word in our general day-to-day conversations. During the same time, tech giants invested in AI prospects and stating that they are using AI-powered services and products. These investments and statements gained traction over the internet. Journalists and media outlets started releasing articles on how advanced AI will become in the future and emphasized how tech giants are investing in it. In fact, in reality, the AI was able to simply read which was hyped to show that “AI reads like Human Beings–are we touching Superintelligence”? Even though the two narrow AI and General AI are skies apart in terms of time, it grew fear and confusion amongst the public.
As we evolve, we have observed that lot of consumer and general technologies being referred as “Artificial Intelligence-based products” in the beginning, but become routine over a period of time with use and habit and even not considered being powered by AI.
So, why is AI hyped? Simply because at the moment, the AI use cases are “boring”. And unfortunately, “boring” doesn’t sell the news. Instead of talking about simple use-cases of day-to-day problem solving by AI, news outlets prefer to talk about Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), humanoids (a nonhuman creature with characteristics resembling those of a human), and other sci-fi style technology we like “I, Robot” or even “The Matrix”. This enhances public view on AI, its future, and what it might do. Such sci-fi-style technology and non-existent AGI technologies make the news, over-hyping AI with no promises to follow.
Alongside, promises made by tech giants on delivering hi-end AI remain undelivered. Our voice assistants still lack intelligence, and autonomous vehicles are barely touching the ground with just a few like Tesla showing results.
Artificial Intelligence hype mostly began at the century's start. Scientists throughout the first decade of the century started publishing many papers on Artificial Intelligence, what it is, how it will transform our lives, and how it will control humans in the future.
In 2009, Google started developing a driverless vehicle and became the first to pass the self-driving car test. In 2011, IBM launched Watson, a natural language question-answering computer that competed in Jeopardy and defeated the former champions. Following these instances, Alphabet Inc’s subsidiary DeepMind created AlphaGo, a machine that played Go, one of the hardest games in the world. AlphaGo eventually defeated the Go champion.
Such instances with Artificial Intelligence created worry in the minds of people, causing chaos on what AI will essentially do to humanity. Venture capitalist investments also doubled to 40 Billion from 2017 to 2018, according to Wired. And this is said to increase in the coming years. A study by Price Warehouse estimated that by the year 2030, the AI industry will boost the global economy by outputting more than $15 Trillion, more than the GDP of India, Japan, the United Kingdom, and France combined.
Will AI ever live up to its hype?
Nobody can be sure. AI is an advancing field, and it is quite uncertain where it leads us.
In 2018, Elon Musk made the headlines as he warned that “Super-intelligent AI”, many times smarter than humans, will become the biggest crisis for humanity–bigger than nuclear war, climate change, and even politics!
Just a few years back, start-ups in the tech space used to get customer interest and VC funding because of over-hyped AI. But, as the true reality is slowly unearthed, companies are forced to prove their AI capabilities and the customers and investors have asked questions more oriented towards the goal rather than only getting hyped by technology.
Nowadays, experts are going against the hype and pointing out misconceptions and misguided information around Artificial Intelligence. These experts debunk AI myths and are focusing on showing the reality to the customers and audience. For example, in 2013, IBM partnered with the University of Texas cancer center to develop a new “oncology expert detection system”, aiming to cure cancer. IBM released statements about how IBM Watson's cognitive computing system is used for the mission of eradication of cancer. Following the same, StatNews reviewed documents of IBM Watson and said “Internal IBM documents show that its Watson supercomputer often spits out erroneous cancer treatment advice”. This is just one instance amongst many more that was debunked by experts. And so, if such inaccurate claims by tech companies are exposed, then it will help AI live up to its potential, and NOT the hype made by irregular claims, sci-fi fiction, and the media.
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