Your Life Has Already Improved From AI/ML

The silent march of innovation

You always fear what you don’t understand.

- Carmine Falcone, Batman Begins

Given the current boom in AI, there's been a lot of content proclaiming either the end of society or a new era of salvation. Unfortunately, anyone pronouncing the end of society is likely stuck in the past. Similarly, anyone believing transcendence is near likely has their head too far into the future. Personally, I prefer to take a more realistic approach and understand how the world actually works. Realizing that these two opposites are attempting to vie for power in changing times. Instead of pontificating about what may or may not be, let's step through some hidden and not so hidden areas where AI and machine learning have already altered your life. The point here is to reveal a bunch of places where your life has already been affected by AI and machine learning. This should help you realize that you won't die tomorrow nor will you become immortalized as a machine.

• Do you have a fitness tracker? Those devices run multiple machine learning models to determine the type of activity you perform, various other aspects of motion, and interpreting various health metrics.

• Do you own wireless earbuds that automatically pause when you take them out? A machine learning model was created to determine when various accelerations and touch capacitances were active in order to pause your audio when you take them out.

• Have a Roomba? Besides just being a robot, there are various AI models involved that allow Roombas to understand the best way to clean your house and navigate around obstacles.

• Do you like playing with photo filters? Any photo filter that isn't just modifying colors uses AI models to identify key features such as faces or eyes to apply the appropriate overlay.

• Use a service like Truebill/Rocket Money to understand and reduce your expenses? A lot of other people do and many machine learning models were created to parse and interpret those transactions correctly.

• Have you bought any major manufactured good? AI models are used in production lines to expediently check for defects on the assembling line for items ranging from computer chips to car parts. Some AI models (usually in the form of robots) even built part of your product.

• Do you like to know what the weather will be? Nowadays, weather predictions are based on a combination of machine learning, AI, and statistical models. Also, the forecasts by ECMWF are by far the most accurate.

• Do you have a smart thermostat? Most smart home devices apply machine learning models to learn your behavior and adapt to your actions and then make adjustments in the context of current environmental conditions.

• Do you eat food? The modern day tractors used to plant or harvest your food most likely have AI models to assist with navigation. Farmers also use the outputs of various machine learning models to understand their soil requirements and optimal growing conditions.

• Have a rice cooker? Some rice cookers use AI to optimize their rice cooking by relying on sensor feedback and updating based on past experience.

• Do you like receiving timely mail? One of the original use cases for neural networks was for finding a way to recognize hand written characters to provide automated mail sorting.

• Do you like being able to select text when reading a scanned document? Optical Character Recognition (OCR) uses AI methods to identify all the characters in a document and turn them into an electronic form.

• Enjoy using your credit card? The widespread use of credit cards wouldn't be possible without anti-fraud models that use machine learning to ensure purchases conform to your typical behavior.

• Ever look at satellite imagery? Those maps are created by stitching many segments and photographs together using computer vision (AI) models.

• Do you use a mapping application for directions? Real-time navigation relies on machine learning models to feed information into routing algorithms to provide you with the most timely directions.

• Ever have an MRI? Those machines use machine learning to construct the imagery that doctors interpret. Some take it a step further and identify issues as well.

• Do you use internet search? Those algorithms are backed by machine learning and information retrieval algorithms to get you the information you desire in a very fast manner.

• Enjoy not having continuous power blackouts? Energy companies use machine learning models to predict supply and demand as part of their systems to make sure the energy being generated is sufficient.

• Do you read your news through aggregators? News aggregators curate and sort content for you using machine learning systems.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Some examples are non-obvious while others are completely obvious when you think about them. Either way, the point is that machine learning and artificial intelligence have been steadily improving our lives over the years. Most people don't realize that it has been happening though. The forward march and apparent normalcy of innovation can be silent to most.

Now I'm not advocating for AI to be everywhere and in everything. I don't think you need a smart salt shaker. However, I do subscribe to the Bruce Lee philosophy of Jeet Keen Do which relies on "casting off what is useless" and using what works. It is the same way with applying AI and machine learning. Businesses are going to continue to apply AI where it works and provides value, and discontinue use where it does not. Some of these applications you observe by their nature of being overt and others will be silently improving things behind the scenes. I wanted to bring to light all the ways that AI has been embedded in our lives because it works. This silent creeping of innovation is why you shouldn't be doom and gloom, because it’s been happening all along.