AI global landscape: three major areas where artificial intelligence is about to change

Author | Gong Xueyuan

The application of artificial intelligence technology may help scientists on the blue planet get rid of the pain of endless experiments, accelerate the discovery of major scientific theories, and bring human beings to the forefront. Civilization has been elevated to a new level.

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Everyone has witnessed the potential of artificial intelligence technology, but what can artificial intelligence be used for in the future and how much impact will it bring to human society? Change is also testing our imagination.

Although artificial intelligence technology is still in its infancy, its current capabilities are enough to change many fields, especially those where there is a large amount of data that cannot be effectively utilized. 1 Artificial intelligence promotes theoretical breakthroughs in basic science

In fact, the research process in basic science fields such as materials, chemistry, and physics is full of "big data". From design, experiment, testing to proof, scientists We are all inseparable from the collection, selection and analysis of data.

Due to the existence of physical, chemical or mechanical laws, data in these fields are often structured, high-quality and annotated.

Artificial intelligence technology (machine learning algorithm) is good at finding "hidden" causal relationships in massive data and can quickly process structured data in scientific research, so it has received widespread attention from scientific researchers.

Artificial intelligence has shown great advantages in research in materials, chemistry, physics and other fields, and is leading the "post-modernization" of basic scientific research.

Take the field of physics as an example. The application of artificial intelligence has brought unprecedented opportunities to particle physics, space physics and other research. In order to search for the Higgs boson (God particle) and further understand the microscopic composition of matter, CERN led the development of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

The LHC is currently the largest particle accelerator in the world. It can generate one million gigabytes (GB) of data per second. The amount of data accumulated in one hour is equivalent to the amount of data collected by Facebook in a year.

Some researchers have thought of using dedicated hardware and software to use machine learning technology to decide in real time which data needs to be saved and which data can be discarded.

It has been proven that machine learning algorithms can make at least 70% of the decisions, which can greatly reduce the workload of human scientists.

Although the commercial development of artificial intelligence is more likely to attract attention, the application of artificial intelligence in basic scientific research is even more exciting.

Because the transformation of social productivity ultimately lies in further breakthroughs in basic scientific research.

We may never return to the era of scientific "giants" such as Newton, Maxwell and Einstein.

In that era, "giants" could rely on their wisdom beyond their times to write concise and beautiful theorems on paper, or design experiments that shocked the world.

There may not be many opportunities to do great work like this. In this era, what is needed more is work to obtain truth through a large amount of experimental data.

As large as the exploration of the origin of the universe, as small as the folding of protein molecules, they are all inseparable from the continuous and persistent exploration of groups of scientists.

The application of artificial intelligence technology may help scientists on the blue planet escape the pain of endless experiments, accelerate the discovery of major scientific theories, and elevate human civilization to a new level. 2 Artificial intelligence promotes the rapid improvement of social production efficiency

Artificial intelligence is undoubtedly the highest goal and ultimate vision of computer application:

It completely liberates humans from repetitive mechanical labor and allows people to engage in Work that is truly in line with human intelligence and full of creativity.

In the 60-year history of the development of artificial intelligence, far-reaching applications such as machine translation, image recognition, voice assistants and personalized recommendations have been born, and people's lives have unknowingly undergone tremendous changes. .

In the future, as artificial intelligence application scenarios are further extended, will it be able to greatly improve social production efficiency and lead mankind into a new era?

To explore this issue, Andrew Ng, a former executive at Google and Baidu, founded Landing.ai in 2017, a company based on solving AI transformation problems.

Ng Enda announced the establishment of the company through an article and a video on his personal social networking site, and expressed the hope that artificial intelligence can change all aspects of human life, including food, clothing, housing and transportation, and free people from the spirit of repetitive labor. Release from hard labor.

Landing's Chinese meaning is "landing". The company's goal is to help traditional companies use algorithms to reduce costs, improve quality management levels, eliminate supply chain bottlenecks, etc.

Up to now, Landing. ai has chosen two areas of implementation, namely manufacturing and agriculture.

Landing.ai first cooperated with manufacturing giant Foxconda.

Landing.ai attempts to use technologies such as automatic visual inspection, supervised learning and prediction to help Foxconn move towards intelligent manufacturing, artificial intelligence and big data, and improve the level of AI applications in the manufacturing process.

Ng Enda believes that the impact of artificial intelligence on the manufacturing industry will be as powerful as the invention of electricity. Artificial intelligence technology is very suitable to solve some of the challenges currently faced by the manufacturing industry, such as unstable quality and output, and production lines. Insufficient design flexibility, inability to keep up with production capacity management, and rising production costs.

At present, concepts such as the Industrial Internet, intelligent manufacturing and Industry 4.0 have been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Traditional enterprises are transforming towards intelligence and data. However, how to apply the large amounts of data obtained during the production process has become a new problem. question. The cooperation between Landing.ai and Foxconn may bring new enlightenment to traditional manufacturing practitioners.

Of course, the core competitiveness of the manufacturing industry still lies in the manufacturing industry itself, such as the accuracy of lathes, the temperature control capabilities of heat treatment furnaces, etc. The core competitiveness of agriculture also lies in agriculture itself, such as breeding technology and genetically modified technology. etc.

The main value of artificial intelligence technology lies in improving decision-making capabilities, further improving production efficiency, and reducing repetitive labor. This is why artificial intelligence can "empower" various industries. 3 Artificial intelligence will effectively improve human living space

Since the first industrial revolution, human activities have had an increasing impact on the natural world, and the growing demand for resources has caused tremendous changes in land use. Pollution is becoming more and more serious, biodiversity has declined sharply, and human living space has become increasingly bad.

After entering the era of artificial intelligence, how to better utilize cutting-edge technologies such as big data and machine learning to empower environmental protection and green industries has become the focus of attention of governments, scientists, the public and enterprises.

In terms of energy utilization, DeepMind, owned by Google, is undoubtedly at the forefront.

Since 2016, DeepMind has introduced artificial intelligence tools into Google data centers to help the technology giant save energy bills.

DeepMind uses the recognition pattern system of neural networks to predict changes in power, and uses artificial intelligence technology to control computer servers and related cooling systems, successfully helping Google save 40% of energy and improving Google's overall energy efficiency. 15%.

After 2018, DeepMind has extended its "tentacles" to the field of clean energy. We all know that wind power is difficult to integrate into the power grid and cannot be effectively utilized due to its high volatility and unpredictability.

DeepMind uses weather forecasts, meteorological observations and other data to train neural network models, which can provide wind forecasts 36 hours later, making wind power generation on farms predictable.

Once wind power can be predicted, power plants will have ample time to activate generation methods that take longer to come online to complement wind power. In this way, the problem of difficulty in connecting wind power to the grid can be easily solved.

Comparison of wind power generation predicted by DeepMind and actual power generation

In terms of natural environment protection, Microsoft's "Artificial Intelligence of Earth" has made a contribution to everyone example.

This program was launched in July 2017. It aims to protect and sustain the earth and its natural resources with the help of cloud computing, Internet of Things and AI technologies, and provide water resources through funding, training and in-depth cooperation. Provide support to individuals and organizations in the fields of resources, agriculture, biodiversity and climate change.

For example, the “SilviaTerra” project uses Microsoft Azure, high-resolution satellite imagery and field data from the U.S. Forest Service to train machine learning models to monitor forests; the “WildMe” project uses computer vision and deep learning algorithms to identify endangered animals; the FarmBeats project improves data collection through sensors, drones, and other devices in outdoor environments to make agriculture more sustainable.

In the first three industrial revolutions, while scientific and technological progress brought great convenience to people's lives, it also brought about thorny natural environmental problems such as climate change, biodiversity degradation, and atmospheric and ocean pollution. , the human living environment is gradually becoming worse.

On the surface, it seems that the natural environment of developed economies has improved, but this improvement comes at the cost of transferring pollution and destroying the natural environment of developing countries. The overall natural environment situation in the world is still unacceptable. optimism.

People have always hoped that future scientific and technological progress can solve the current natural environment problems, and the emergence of artificial intelligence technology has ignited this hope.

Once artificial intelligence technology can accelerate breakthroughs in basic scientific theories, achieve a substantial increase in production efficiency, and effectively improve human living space, all problems with development and the natural environment will be easily solved. 4 Summary

Looking at artificial intelligence in 2019, you can’t help but feel a bit chilly.

There is no obvious breakthrough in artificial intelligence algorithms. Problems such as poor robustness and algorithm black boxes are still prominent. Some commercialization implementations are also lower than expected. Some experts and scholars are beginning to worry that artificial intelligence will usher in a new "cold winter."

But if we look back at artificial intelligence from the future, all the current worries will be just episodes.

Even now, the potential of artificial intelligence technology is far from over.

The changes that artificial intelligence will bring will still exceed most people’s imagination.

In recent years, many industries have truly felt the disruption brought by artificial intelligence, including finance, manufacturing, education, medical care, transportation, etc.

However, there are many other value dimensions of artificial intelligence. Accelerating basic scientific research, improving social production efficiency and improving human living space are just a few of them. We might as well improve our imagination first.

Let us wait and see what changes artificial intelligence will bring to mankind!