By now, all of us already know that computers rule the world. Wherever you look and everywhere you go, there are all sorts of electrical gadgets that supposedly make our lives better and easier. Computers are at the core of modern life and we have reached the point where even the tiniest of these gadgets can really do big things and we won’t be surprised anymore. The rapid rise of the Internet of Things has further propelled smart technology’s popularity among the public. We use computers in almost everything we do and it only makes perfect sense to develop the technology even further and hopefully make robots with human-like intelligence that are capable of doing a lot of things.
While many of the things we have now have somehow reached that point with computer assistants such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, we are still far from achieving the fullest potential of artificial intelligence. Yet, we should not also discredit the fact that the technology we have now is eons away from the ones our grandparents have witnessed a century ago. Just looking at the handheld device you can’t live without now, it is amazing how technology has incorporated itself into the very core of our existence and proving just how worthy they are of our undivided attention.
Seven years ago, a computer beat two human quizmasters on a “Jeopardy” challenge. Ever since, the tech industry has been training its machines even harder to make them better at amassing knowledge and answering questions.
And it’s worked, at least up to a point. Just don’t expect artificial intelligence to spit out a literary analysis of Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” any time soon.
Research teams at Microsoft and Chinese tech company Alibaba reached what they described as a milestone earlier this month when their AI systems outperformed the estimated human score on a reading comprehension test. It was the latest demonstration of rapid advances that have improved search engines and voice assistants and that are finding broader applications in health care and other fields.
(Via: https://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=13000CYRSR2U)
Most modern computers won’t have a problem answering calculations or learn a new program fast unlike the average Joe but they’re far from perfect. While computers have performed well or even aced in certain tests, they still fumbled over simple questions that most humans can answer with ease because computers have mixed up details or got confused over some data. Computers have definitely gotten smarter in certain aspects but there is much to work on and improve for them to finally be able to exceed human intelligence.
Computers enjoy other advantages over people. They have better memories, so they can be fed a large amount of information, and can tap into all of it almost instantaneously. Computers don’t require sleep the way humans do, so they can calculate, analyze and perform tasks tirelessly and round the clock. Notwithstanding bugs or susceptibility to power blackouts, computers are simply more accurate at pulling off a broadening range of high-value functions than we are. They’re not affected or influenced by emotions, feelings, wants, needs and other factors that often cloud the judgement and intelligence of us mere mortals.
(Via: http://time.com/4960778/computers-smarter-than-humans/)
It is hard to gauge the level of computer intelligence for ordinary humans. There are just two main points to remember when it comes to determining intelligence: a computer’s ability to learn and its problem-solving abilities. If you just look at it that way, there is, without a doubt, that computers are more superior to us humans in every way. We can only do so much with our limited mental capacities whereas computers can fire up thousands to millions of responses to a single query posted on a search engine that humans can only dream of achieving. Well, if you look at it that way, then we can definitely say that computers today have gotten really smarter for today’s standard, something probably unimaginable to the time your parents were growing up.
