‘A
rtificial intelligence.’ The chances are that the first images that come tomindwhen
hearing that phrase are of robots fromscience fiction films that, at worst, are taking
over theworld and perhaps using humans to power their evil machinations, and at
best, are genius intellects slightly puzzled by our ‘emotions’. Reality can follow fiction, and some
actual high‑profile artificial intelligence projects have pursued a similar portrayal of artificial
intelligence through contests that pitman versusmachines in variousways. Themost famous
recent examples are both by IBM– the DeepBlue computer beating Kasparov at chess in 1997, followedmore dramatically by theWatson systemeasily
winning over several ‘Jeopardy’ champions, including the best ever player, in 2011. Another lesswell known example is the yearly Robocup contest
where teams of human‑size robots compete at soccer. That organisation’s stated goal is to beat theWorld Cupwinners by 2050.
Though these projectsmay seem like gimmicks, they are actually carefully crafted to drive innovation inmethods that are extremely useful in
industry. While there is a very limitedmarket for IBM to sell a Jeopardy‑playing computer system formillions of dollars, themarket for computer systems
that help answermedical questions is potentially enormous, and indeed this is one of the areas IBM is taking this research. And the Robocup contest
has helped foster a revolution in robots that understand and react to their environments, attempting to duplicate theway humans can seamlessly
performthe same. These science fiction‑like projects give artificial intelligence an air of technology that is so far ahead of its time that it can safely
be ignored as a venue for solving business problems today. The truth is that AI techniques are embedded in products everywherewith considerably
Phil Wade,
Verdande
Technology,
USA, explores
the growing
use of artificial
intelligence in
the oil and gas
industry.
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