Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science, Essay Example

Artificial intelligence involves an area of study that is highly debatable because it is upon individuals to believe if it is achievable or not. Artificial Intelligence entails a scientific field that facilitates the functioning of machines in chores that require the input of human intelligence. Artificial Intelligence is commonly mistaken to mean humanoid robotics due to the similarity with human intelligence (Boden, 2006). Artificial Intelligence involves the study of use of machines that has the potentials of performing in a similar manner to the human brain, including emotions as well as consciousness. Artificial intelligence involves a gigantic technological step since on its successful adoption and implementation; everyday activities in major fields would resort to automation, thus eradicating the use of human labor in many fields. The basic premise behind artificial intelligence is not business per se, but the application of laboratory techniques in artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence has made significant milestone in a variety of areas such as robotics as well as neural networks as compared to a variety of other disciplines across the globe.

The first category that applies the skills of artificial intelligence involves the systems that make use of top-down approach. The use of top-down approach entails feeding a computer with distinctive documented instructions that forms the basis of functioning of the computer on the basis of applicable program that is used in the computer. This technique had its broad application during the 1950’s, which was an epoch of artificial intelligence being an inexplicable field among many people and was at that time associated with substantial defects (Boden, 2006). The complexities that were associated with such a system entailed documentation of intricate programs which was time and labor intensive and therefore posed a challenge to be implemented by the majority of users. This culminated to the development of newer techniques that involved the bottom-up approach. In this newer development, data was arranged in to intricate fashion that entailed interconnection of vital information in a similar manner as the functionality of the human brain, thence it earned its name of neural network. This was an extremely intricate as well as confusing to most people at particular junctures. Several categories of application of the principle of artificial intelligence have been documented.

Robotics is one of the most popular categories that apply the principles of artificial intelligence. This noble field that involves application of robots in many business operations reached its height of prosperity in the ’90’s. The most crucial facet of robotics is not the engineering component but rather the use of computers to control the functionality of the entire system and this is the tenet behind most categories of artificial intelligence at present. Robotics is one of the most crucial branches in artificial intelligence as is evident in some retailers that make use of robots in their supply chain management. These robots account for the significant contribution of artificial intelligence in business. Robots are therefore being adopted in manufacturing industries to supply cheap labor as a replacement of assembly line human laborers as a critical decision in supply chain management (Russell & Norvig, 2003).

The role played by artificial intelligence in decision making surpasses the robot-aided functions and its effectiveness is particularly crucial in financial management. The managers in hedge funds for example have expressed deep interests in the expert systems that are responsible for reduction of errors in decisions related to investments. In addition, a number of stock traders have embraced neural networks in forecasting their stock performance by means of analyzing archaic data. The systems of artificial intelligence are also able to crawl through press releases, social media as well as news contents that have implications to stock prices in efforts of forecasting possible future changes thus assisting accurate bidding by investors.

Artificial intelligence is also widely applicable in health care research where it has played a crucial role in saving peoples’ lives. Researchers have created simulation models to analyze patients data are thence form the basis of treatment plan recommendation with 50% efficiency and cost effective (Russell & Norvig, 2003). Artificial intelligence is therefore associated with high potentialities in improvement of decision making potentials in majority of the industries which has translated to saving costs. With the rapid advancement in artificial intelligence, many people are likely to lose their jobs due to automation. Hundreds of thousands of people will be replaced by machines that perform flawless and error free. And it would be cheaper to buy a machine for $5,000 that can work for 10 years, than to pay someone $40,000 a year for 10 years, which is just simple math. AI is a very interesting field that is still in the early stages. There have only been major advances in that field in the last 10 years (Russell & Norvig, 2003). Most international business organizations ar embracing artificial intelligence in specific business aspects to achieve increased efficiency, reduced error and cost efficiency.

Artificial intelligence has gained popularity in scientific research and the advances made in the field of computing technology has drawn artificial intelligence closer to operations of business in most industries (Russell & Norvig, 2003). Reduction of errors in operations and achievement of high echelons of efficiency are motivating factors for adoption of artificial intelligence in the business practices of most organizations.

References

Boden, Margaret A. (2006). Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science. Oxford.

Russell, S. & Norvig, P., (2003).  Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach. Prentice Hall.