Microsoft's Future Technology - Artificial Technology (Part 2 of 3)

What is Microsoft's vision on AI

AI will change our world. It will augment and assist humans.
A confluence of three breakthroughs - Big Data , massive computing power and sophisticated algorithms - is accelerating AI from sci-fi to reality. At astonishing rate , data is being gathered and made available thanks to the exponential growth of cameras and sensors in or everyday life. AI needs data to learn . The cloud has made tremendous computing power available to everyone an complex algorithms can now be written to discern insight and intelligence from the mountains of data.

AI is some ways away from becoming what's known as artificial general intelligence(AGI) , the point at which a computer matches or even surpasses human intellectual capabilities. 

Like human intelligence , artificial intelligence can be categorized by layer . The bottom layer is simple pattern recognition . the middle late is perception, sensing more ad more complex scenes . it's estimated that 99 percent of human perception is through speech and vision , Finally, the highest level of intelligence is  cognition - deep understanding of human language.


These are building blocks of AI and for many years Microsoft has invested in advancing each of these tiers - statistical machine learning tools to make swans of data na recognize patterns; computers that can see, hear and move and even begin to learn and understand human language. Microsoft set the accuracy record with a computer system that can transcribe the content s of a phone call mor accurately than a human professional trained in transcription. On the computer sions dn learning from, in late 2015 our AI group swept first prize across five challenges event though we only trained ours system for one of those challenges. In the common Object s in Context challenge , an AI system attempts to solve several visual recognition tasks .  We trained our system to accomplish the other tasks on its won . It not only could explain the photograph, but it was also sable to dra a circle around every distinct object int he photograph , but it was also able to draw a circle around every distance object in the photograph and product an English sentence that described the action it saw in the photo.

Satya Nadella believes in 10 years, AI speech recognition and visual recognition will be better than a human's. But just because a machine can see and hear doesn't mean it can truly learn and
understand. Natural language understanding, the interaction between computers and human is the next frontier.

How will Microsoft empower its clients to take advantage of AI

Microsoft's approach is to put the tools for building AI in the hands of everyone .

Microsoft vision  is to build tools that have true artificial intelligence infused across agents, applications, services and infrastructure .


1. We are harnessing artificial intelligence to fundamentally change how people interact with agents like Cortana which will become more and more common in our lives.

2. Application life Office 365 and Dynamics 365 will have AI baked in so that they can help us focus on things that matter the most and get more of  every moment.

3. We will make the underlying intelligence capabilities of our services - the pattern recognition , perception and cognitive capabilities - available to every application developer in the world .

4. Microsoft is building the world's most powerful AI supercomputer and making that infrastructure available to anyone.

How is AI being used by Microsoft's Clients?

McDonald's is creating  an AI System that can help its workers to take your order to in the drive-through line , making ordering food simpler , more efficient and more accurate .
Uber is using cognitive services tools to prevent fraud and improve passenger safety by matching the drivers's photograph to ensure the right driver at the wheel.
Volvo is using  AI tools to help recognize when drivers are distracted to warn them and prevent accidents.

If you are a business owner  or  manager, imagine if you had AI system that could literally see your entire operation, understand what's happening and notify you about that things that you care most about . Prism Skylabs has innovated on top  of cognitive services so that computers monitor video surveillance cameras that analyze what' s happening. I you have construct company, the system will tell you when it sees the cement truck arrive at one of you work sites. For retailers , it can keep track of inventory to help you find a manager in one  of your stores. One day, in a hospital setting, it might watch the surgeon and supporting staff to warn the team , before it's too late, if it sees a medical error.

Reference:
Hit Refresh - Satya Nadella