AI - The New Tech Buzzword
Since ChatGPT was unleashed on the world in November, 2022, Artificial Intelligence has taken its place at the top of the list of technology acronyms. Every company now heavily markets that they use AI. Google now gives you an “AI Overview” at the top of your search results. Google search interest in the term AI has gone up more than twelvefold in the past two years.
Source: Google Trends
What does AI actually mean?
To find out the official definition of AI, I fed three popular AI tools the prompt, “Define AI in one sentence.” Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini gave me exactly the same answer, “Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems.” ChatGPT had a similar yet differently-worded answer, “Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior, enabling it to learn, reason, and solve problems.”
Integrating AI into daily life has become a controversial topic. Ethical concerns include the creation of deep fakes, people using AI to do their schoolwork for them and using software AI tools to write malicious code. People are afraid of losing their jobs to AI tools. AI can be swayed towards particular biases, intentionally or unintentionally. There are many more concerns about the negative impacts. This new, powerful tool can be frightening to many.
But this isn’t an article about the negatives. Since I have been known to have reservations about generative AI, my team challenged me to write about the benefits of AI in our world. Considering this, I thought I would go beyond the cool ability of AI to take your Facebook profile picture and put you in a spacesuit on the moon.
Image generated by prompting Copilot with, “Draw a picture of AI being awesome.”
Real World AI Awesomeness
AI has the ability to think faster than humans can imagine. It can handle boring, repetitive tasks faster and more accurately than people. AI also takes in unimaginably large amounts of data and processes it to get an answer in seconds. Generative AI provides the ability to create new and unique content such as images, text and music. These benefits provide potential to all areas of life and science that were previously unimaginable.
Computer Science
Not surprisingly, Artificial intelligence is highly embraced by the IT profession. Cybersecurity vendors have started integrating it into tools to detect hackers, malware and phishing attacks. If you can use AI to create these attacks, why not use it to defend against it? AI is also used to analyze computer code quickly and accurately to find bugs and even detect financial fraud. Understaffed IT departments use AI tools to manage large environments easier and faster.
Office Productivity
Beyond the chat version of Copilot built into the Bing search engine, users can ask Microsoft Office’s integrated Copilot tools for Microsoft 365 to summarize the emails they have received overnight or create a prioritized list of open actions based on their inbox. The tools also allow you to make PowerPoint presentations quickly from Word documents. While the slides may still need to be reviewed and edited, having the first few steps handled in seconds does save valuable time.
Healthcare
The benefits of AI in healthcare are just starting to be realized. While a good bedside manner will always be important to patient care, AI can be used to assist diagnosis and determine paths of treatment. The ability to handle large datasets easily gives Artificial Intelligence the opportunity to compare a single patient’s symptoms and medical history against cases across the country or even globally. The amount of time this would take a human is staggering, yet AI can process it in seconds or minutes. AI can also be used to evaluate drug interactions and, according to an article by California Miramar University, “Through monitoring devices and remote care technologies, AI enables round-the-clock healthcare support for chronically ill patients or seniors who need continuous care.”
Engineering
In the engineering world, Artificial Intelligence allows professionals to create models of environments and processes to determine the most efficient and safest way to build a solution. AI tools have already been used in many cases to speed up design generation and improve design effectiveness.
Improving the World
Beyond the professional and work-related benefits of artificial intelligence, the true value of this technology is in its potential to improve quality of life. AI can be used to evaluate the need for food and other supplies globally and help coordinate necessary resources. From scheduling and inventorying to optimizing distribution, AI’s ability to process extremely large amounts of data has the potential to greatly assist emergency responders and non-profit organizations. Analyzing weather patterns in new ways can help predict disasters earlier. According to an article by the World Economic Forum, AI algorithms were being used back in 2020 to improve the yield of farms, identify outbreaks of disease and pests, and determine the ripeness of crops. AI is also being used in fire prevention equipment, security surveillance and even provides fall detection and emergency monitoring services for senior citizens.
So It’s Not All Bad
If you are concerned that artificial intelligence is going to take over the world like The Matrix or Terminator…
Or if you fear it is going to monitor everything you do…
Or if you think it’s going to make people lazier…
Or if you think it is going to influence the next presidential election…
You are not alone.
But those remain to be seen. The reality we have now is that AI is here. It’s all around us and being integrated into everything from refrigerators to heart monitors to toothbrushes. As with everything else, it is up to us to decide if we use it for good.
Image generated by prompting Copilot with “draw a picture of AI saving the world”
By Jerry Patterson, Director of the Information Security Office
To mark National Cyber Security Awareness Month this year, Information Resources & Technology will be sharing tips and insight throughout October on how to protect your data -- and Rowan's data -- when using genAI. For more information on genAI at Rowan, visit go.rowan.edu/genAI. For other online security tips, visit go.rowan.edu/ncsam.