Main Types of AI Capabilities

Numeric Predictions
Have you looked at a weather forecast recently? Predicting rain or shine
helps you decide if you should grab an umbrella. Although we’ve made weather
predictions for thousands of years, AI can do it better than any previous method.

Often AI predictions take the form of a value between 0 (not going to happen) to 1
(totally going to happen). Numeric predictions include more than just percent
values, they can predict any numeric value, such as dollars. Maybe your business
wants to predict next quarter’s sales, or figure out the optimal pricing for your
latest service: Widget+. And as a consumer you’re probably already affected by
these kinds of numeric predictions, even more than you realize. Just imagine a trip
overseas: the airline tickets, hotel room, ridesharing, and travelers insurance are
all likely to be priced by AI to perfectly balance supply and demand

Classifications
Is a hot dog a sandwich? This question has led to countless hours of friendly
philosophical debate about how we categorize things. But in the real world, the
stakes can be much higher. Is this plant edible or poisonous? Is that email
legitimate or a phishing attempt? Classification is often the first step in taking
some kind of action, making it an incredibly valuable skill.
So it isn’t surprising that computer scientists have worked hard to create
AI that’s good at classifying data. Identifying plants and phishing emails is only
the tip of the iceberg. Financial institutions need to flag fraudulent
transactions. Medical professionals must diagnose illnesses. Social media platforms
want to identify toxic comments. All of these are examples of classification
problems. AI can effectively make the first pass at classifying, and then the
professionals can take it from there.
Often, AI classifiers can do the job just as well, or better, than humans.
That said, each classifier is only good at one, narrow task. So the AI that’s great
at detecting phishing emails would be lousy at identifying pictures of actual fish

Robotic Navigation
Some AIs excel at navigating a changing environment, and that might mean actual
navigation in the case of autonomous (hands-free) driving. AI-powered cars are
already quite capable of keeping centered in a lane and following at a safe
distance on the highway. They adapt to curves in the road, gusts of wind from semi
trucks, and sudden stops due to traffic.
AI that can adapt to changing environmental conditions have all sorts of
real-world applications. For example, businesses need to produce and deliver
products to their customers every day. Lots of market conditions play a role in how
quickly that gets done: materials availability, manufacturing capacity, existing
inventory, transportation costs, even real-time traffic. AI can optimize the supply
chain even while conditions are changing.
And let’s not forget robots! Even the modest robot floor sweeper can
avoid stairs and chairs. On a bigger scale, assembly lines are being fitted with
robots that become faster and more efficient over time. Those same robots can
adjust for changes to the production method without costly reprogramming. And
researchers are creating rescue robots that can traverse disaster areas, such as a
collapsed building. A robot-caterpillar that can squeeze through tiny cracks could
deliver aid and hope to those trapped inside.

Language Processing
On November 30, 2022, Merriam-Webster’s word of the day was quiddity. Those who
learned that word got a little better at what might be the most important skill of
all: communication. On that same day, the world was introduced to ChatGPT, an
artificial intelligence that demonstrated its own communication skills. It could
write long responses to questions about almost any topic. And the responses seemed
like they were written by a human. ChatGPT is one of the most capable AIs built to
interpret everyday language and act on it in some meaningful way. This is known in
the industry as natural language processing, or just NLP.

Natural language processing relies on an understanding of how words are used

together, and that lets AI extract the intention behind the words. For example, you
might want to translate a document from English to German. Or maybe you want a
short summary of a long, scientific paper. AI can do that too.

NLP is a huge part of generative AI, a subcategory of AI that takes words and turns
them into unique images, sounds, and of course other words. Generative AI is such a
disruptive technology that we’ve devoted a whole badge to Generative AI Basics.
Check it out when you’re done here.

Artificial intelligence can be thought of as the ability for a computer to perform

skills typically associated with human intuition, inference, and reasoning. At this
time, AI skills are very specialized, and fall into some broad categories like
numeric predictions and language processing.