What is AI?

Good afternoon everyone,

I hope you’re all having a stellar start to the weekend 🙂

Over the last couple of years, we have experienced an influx in the development of technology, with advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR) and more revolutionising the way in which we live our lives. Sometimes it can be difficult to keep up with all of these changes, so I’m going to be breaking them down for you all – starting with today’s blog, which will be an introduction to the world of AI.

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been all over the news over the last couple of years, with developments made in Generative AI and Machine Learning, among many other areas, holding immense potential for society as a whole. If you haven’t been keeping up to date with the latest news though, it can be very easy to fall behind, leaving you asking questions like – “What even is AI?”

According to McKinsey, AI is a machine’s ability to perform the cognitive functions we usually associate with human minds. They develop this further, noting how AI is a machine’s ability to perform the cognitive functions we associate with human minds, such as perceiving, reasoning, learning, interacting with an environment, problem-solving, and even exercising creativity.

In essence, the study of AI is exploring how we can create technology that is ‘intelligent’, that is able to learn and develop using the data and lessons learnt from the past to shape future decisions and courses of action. AI is a category of technology, with branches like Generative AI, Machine Learning and others branching off into their own specific areas – some of which you may find interesting, others not so much.

Generative AI has been particularly under focus in recent months, with the release of ChatGPT and other applications collecting widespread attention from the mainstream media. Generative AI, in simple terms, refers to the use of AI to create new content, whether that is in an audio, video, code or text-based format. Gen AI can be used to create content based on a prompt that you enter into the program – for example, if you are trying to create an image, you can enter the prompt “Show me a sheep on a plane”, and the system will generate a range of images for you.

While this technology is by no means perfect as of yet, the work and developments that have gone into it over the last couple of years are staggering. As we look ahead to the next 5-10 years, its value is set to continue rising, with people finding new and creative ways for it to be used across business and life more generally.

That’s a little introduction to the wonderful world of AI for you all! If you would be interested in seeing me break down some more of the different branches or possible use cases, be sure to let me know. I would love to start talking about technology more on the page going forward, however, before I can go properly in-depth, I feel like doing little introductory blogs like this will be the best way to go about it.

That’s all for today’s blog, what do you think? Are there any areas of technology that you would like to see me explore on the page going forward? Be sure to let me know your thoughts and opinions 🙂

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a lovely day!