The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Future Technology

Artificial intelligence (AI) - "Technology of the Future", defined by John McCarthy in 1956 as "The science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially computer programs” [1]. AI is currently one of the most disruptive classes of technology whose capacity is rapidly improving due to the enhancement of various factors: huge diversity of data collected from various sources; availability of large cheap storage; development of faster and powerful computers and improve AI methods. All these factors have catalyzed and boosted the capabilities of AI. Since last decade AI is ubiquitous and is not only limited to Computer science but has evolved to include in other areas like health, automobile, security, education, business application, etc.

AI has the capability to develop a more enhanced healthcare services having the ability to deliver exceptional results and even enriching people to have greater control to track and monitor their daily health requirements. It is seen that progress and role of Information technology over healthcare is transiting from product development to service enhancement to solution provider [2]. Currently, medical platforms in healthcare focus on evidential, real-time and result oriented care. The forthcoming years are expected to drive towards delivering effective medical solutions where AI will play a predominant role in providing intelligent smart solutions not only for the current outcome-based care but for preventative care as well. Moreover, in recent years there has been an exceptional surge in the medical and health-related unstructured data collected which is now available. It was estimated in 2013 that the volume of health-related data that was available had risen to 4 zettabytes and was projected that this exponential growth rate would be 10 times by 2020, and, even more, to yottabyte in the near future [3]. This humongous amount of data has provided a platform for AI to structure data and train itself to predict the actual diseases and move towards "precision medicine". Precision medicine described by National Institutes of Health as an “emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person"[4]. It provides a more accurate prediction of the way of treatment and strategies to prevent a specific disease.

In International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging for the creation of a computational system to detect metastatic breast cancer, it was found that the combination of AI system's prediction along with diagnoses of human pathologist’s enhanced the success rate of diagnoses to 99. 5% which approximate 85% lower down the rate of human error [5]. Another area of futuristic research where AI is playing a crucial role is brain-to-machine interfaces which will enable human brain interaction directly with computers and machines. This could possibly cure a ton of incurable diseases. The rapid advancement in the field of AI is erasing all healthcare limitations and enhancing its applicability to newer dimensions. AI plays a vital role in unlocking the potential of Internet of Things (IoT) applications and its deployments. IoT platforms integrate AI capabilities like machine learning based analytics gaining the ability to detect anomalies that sensors and devices generate. Machine learning approaches coupled with IoT are capable for making operational predictions 20 times faster and accurate as compared to traditional business intelligence which usually monitors numeric thresholds. The International Data Corporation predicts that by 2019, AI will support “all effective” IoT efforts and without AI, data from the deployments will have “limited value. ” Augmentation of IoT with AI spawns new products and services. Natural Language Processing (NLP) which leverages AI is getting better at communication with people. This technology has an important role in being an efficient, reliable, consumer friendly virtual assistant. It is expected that by 2020, 85% interactive communication with customers will be automated and managed without any human assistance (Gartner) [6].

AI, neural networks, robotics and deep learning will play a crucial role in future IoT application development. Traditionally, robotics framework only incorporates programmable dimension to the developed machines associated with repetitious task, while AI empowers them by enhancing their decision making ability through self-learning algorithms thus making robotic system to be more autonomous. The techniques in AI allow easy IoT robotic cognitive system integration with numerous other IoT applications for building optimized solutions for desired application. Reasoning capabilities developed through machine learning, neural networks and cloud resources exploitation [7] brings substantial impact in enhancing system efficiency, better humanmachine interaction, and ensuring safety and security. Cyber security is the discipline that benefits readily through AI. To ensure versatile and steady protection, cyber security systems are required to be persistently conforming to the new dynamic environment. Due to their flexibility and adaptability, AI techniques when incorporated in security can augment overall security execution and provide effective security against an increasing number of complex threats. Cisco’s “2018 Annual Cyber Security Report” which examined a wide cross-section of trends and patterns in data theft, data loss, malware and other issues, found that 32 percent of security leaders are “completely reliant” on AI to safeguard sensitive corporate information. After adopting AI in cyber security, it was observed by them that time to detect security issues, went from 14 hours in 2016 to 4. 6 last year. AI is very helpful in identifying attacks and responds to contraventions by automating complex processes. AI is powerful enough to create new generation of defense cyber security products called Robo-hunters, a threat-seeker which build on predictive behavioral analytics have the ability to monitor network activity behavior and scan an organization’s environment for potential threat. They self-train themselves as they scan and takes required remediation action. AI self-learning ability when coupled with latest technologies like deception technology which proactively detect and trick attackers will take cyber security to new level.

AI is expected to play a pivotal role in bringing a dawn of new age in human history i. e augmented age. As the field of AI is progressing at an accelerating rate, it is expected that inherent competency of man would be enhanced by AI which assist him think, robotic systems which assist him execute, and a digital nervous system linking him to a world very different from his inherent senses. AI has already shown its capacity to work alongside humans and in the revolution of new technology domains; improving the accuracy of cancer and other disease detection [8,9], securing and enhancing IoT capabilities. With lots of vital implication of AI and its profound capability, AI could be used for good or nefarious purposes, so it needs to be regularly checked with "more" and "tougher" regulations involving internal and external accountability, transparency, professionalism, and it should be ensured that benefits of AI technology spread fairly and broadly to the whole world.