Education and Career News / Trends from around the World — October 17th, 2020

3 min read

Curated by the Knowledge Team of ICS Career GPS

Education

What is AI flowchart. Credit: KAREN HAO

What is Artificial Intelligence?

The definition of artificial intelligence is constantly evolving and the term often gets mangled, says Karen Hao in her article published in the MIT Technology Review. Excerpts from the article below:

What is AI, exactly? The question may seem basic but the answer is kind of complicated. In the broadest sense, AI refers to machines that can learn, reason, and act for themselves. They can make their own decisions when faced with new situations, in the same way that humans and animals can.

As it currently stands, the vast majority of the AI advancements and applications you hear about refer to a category of algorithms known as machine learning. These algorithms use statistics to find patterns in massive amounts of data. They then use those patterns to make predictions on things like what shows you might like on Netflix, what you’re saying when you speak to Alexa, or whether you have cancer based on your MRI.

Machine learning, and its subset deep learning, is incredibly powerful. It is the basis of many major breakthroughs, including facial recognition, hyper-realistic photo and voice synthesis, and AlphaGo, the program that beat the best human player in the complex game of Go. But it is also just a tiny fraction of what AI could be.

The grand idea is to develop something resembling human intelligence, which is often referred to as “artificial general intelligence,” or “AGI.” Some experts believe that machine learning and deep learning will eventually get us to AGI with enough data, but most would agree there are big missing pieces and it’s still a long way off. It is constantly evolving. So, what would have been considered AI in the past may not be considered AI today.


Career

Volunteers build resilient communities

The UN celebrates the work of volunteers everywhere, with a focus on local volunteers working at the community level. Through its State of the World’s Volunteerism Report (SWVR) 2018 – https://www.unv.org/publications/swvr2018 the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme provides concrete evidence, and recognises the many ways in which people are dedicating their time to make communities more resilient against natural disasters, economic stresses and political shocks.


Why Wait?

Change the world for the better. Volunteering is unbelievable satisfying. 600,000+ people from all over the world have signed up to be online volunteers to support the work of the UN and the #GlobalGoals. You can start volunteering for the UN now – https://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en

. . .

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the above mentioned articles are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of ICS Career GPS or its staff.)

Like this post? For more such helpful articles, click on the button below and subscribe FREE to our blog.



Leave a Reply