“Hey Samantha, play a melancholy song”- Alan Watts, movie ‘Her’

Here we see Alan, a closeted poet requesting his partner who is an artificial intelligence device called Samantha to play a sad song as he returns from office.

Nowadays this scenario is not unusual as we often ask ‘Alexa’s or ‘Siri’ to do the same. Maybe they are not very accurate yet, but all these are Artificial Intelligence devices and they are taking over our lives.

Due to the fast-paced life, we are getting dependent more and more on technology. As researchers invest their important time and money, they believe it will solve our problems 

Will they control our lives soon?

Let’s find out.

What is Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is the synthetic way of representing human beings. In short, you can say that simulation of some concepts of the human mind.

But you must understand it cannot function in such a complex way the brain can.

People often refer to artificial intelligence as machine learning but that is the half-truth. Many advanced programming languages are incorporated to create a perfect artificial intelligence device. 

How AI Works

If you are a scientist you will feed artificially intelligent devices huge amounts of data. This process is often called ingestion.

The device then takes up the set of rules and works accordingly. Those sets of rules are known as algorithms. These datasets are correlated with each other so that they can work harmoniously and efficiently.

Not only that, an artificially intelligent device needs proper hardware and software assembly so the algorithms can carry on with their work. 

Types of AI

According to Arend Hintze, a professor at Michigan State University, there are 4 types of Artificial intelligence. They are briefly described below:

1. Reactive Machines: This was first used by IBM to create a computer chess game. This machine did beat a human mind, then time best chess player in the world but the machine was unable of keeping any memory of previous moves. Almost like if you have agnosia.
2. Limited memory: This is also the first-generation Artificial intelligence technology and it was subtly used for making self-driven cars. It could retain some of the memory that had been seeped in it but cannot recall it as a whole. It almost sounds like you have borderline amnesia.
3. Theory of mind: When scientists found the need to incorporate Artificial intelligence in real life they took the neuronal example from the discipline Psychology. Here the AI was able to perform tasks as told and was able to remember instructions. In short, robots were created. 
4. AI with self-awareness: An artificial device that has enough cognitive ability to understand its self-awareness and do introspection does not exist except in science fiction movies. 

Use of AI in Daily Life

• Automation of everyday important chores in daily life has become very important for us. Because of AI, you can move towards a cashless economy. We can catch Ola or Uber from anywhere only because of AI automation. AI has made life easier and we must admit that.
• Artificial intelligence can handle large chunks of data that we are unable to conceive or store for a long time. So if you are looking for creating a huge database for your business Artificial intelligence will help you reach your goal. It will help you maintain your office, workers and their salaries. 
• Artificial intelligence possesses a thing called machine vision. It can be done through an eye detection system like once Apple installed in one of the versions of their iPhone. It can also be a security camera that catches images or videos and stores them for later use. But you must keep in mind that, machine vision is not equivalent to human vision. Machine vision cannot perceive or formulate the outer world like human eyes. It is just there working on algorithms. Useful but lifeless.
• Last but not least, the language processing ability of an Artificially intelligent device. It can now understand the sentiment in speech, can detect spam and help in speech recognition. Thus you can ask Alexa or Siri to play your favourite song. In some cases, military equipment or documents are accessible only via speech recognition. 

What is Emotional Intelligence

Now if we think of emotional intelligence it is a set of skills that only humans and animals can have. We are born with some type of emotional intelligence but as life goes on we learn other types of emotional capabilities.

Emotional intelligence is your cognition or thought process through which you can talk, represent yourself, create humane connections and empathize with others.

Artificial Intelligence vs Emotional Intelligence, same?

The answer is “probably no”.

The way technology is advancing soon we will have robots or computers which are aware of themselves. But the main question remains,

would they be able to empathize with other humans?

(do read this article on emotional intelligence)

They will be a greater problem solver than humans as they can control humongous amounts of data that humans cannot. 

The human mind or brain, which is a squishy mass of fat, can break the rigidity of a rule and be flexible. Thus revolutions were created in the past.
But a humanoid will be controlled by some kind of machine or algorithm that will allow them to have their voice.

In short, will the future generations of AI have free will? 

Conclusion

So you can see we have gone through the remarkable distinctions between artificial intelligence and emotional intelligence. 

The story should not be about artificial intelligence vs emotional intelligence. It’s about incorporating both and live a healthy cognitive life mediated with helpful technology that resonates with our lives.

But still, a question remains.

Vincent Van Gogh painted Starry Night,

Tchaikovsky composed Swan Lake.

Rabindranath Tagore wrote Gitanjali.

Will the humanoids be able to replace human creativity no matter how intelligent they become?

They are created by humans after all.

At the end of the movie ‘Her’ when all the AIs were shut down including Samantha, Alan found solace in his best friend.

No matter how advanced life becomes, human connection is something we cannot live without.

Introspect and leave some comments below.