Key Points

References

Key Concepts

Potential Value Opportunities

APPLICATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

With a better understanding of Artificial Intelligence as a whole, let’s explore some specific applications of artificial intelligence in today’s world. Some of these are more general, but all of them are applicable to the everyday person.

Healthcare Diagnosis and Treatment

One of the more exciting ways to utilize AI today is through healthcare diagnostics and treatment. With humans, there are a lot of limits. Doctors are expensive, waiting rooms are crowded, hospitals are busy, and people make mistakes.

A spider bite looks a lot like MRSA, and it’s common for doctors to accidentally misdiagnose patients for several reasons.

With AI-based healthcare, uploading a picture and answering the AI’s questions can provide helpful results. The AI model can access billions of pictures and databases to make sure every diagnostic is as accurate as possible.

With AI, you won’t need to go to the hospital to get a diagnostic and treatment plan. You’ll be able to get real advice from the comfort of your home, likely using a phone-based app.

Autonomous Vehicles

Autonomous vehicles are cars that can drive themselves with no input needed from a human at all. You might have seen some examples in the news recently, and there are even experimental autonomous vehicles on the road today in parts of America.

How do these cars drive themselves? Through AI. Artificial Intelligence is acting as the brain for the whole operation. It’s interpreting incoming data from sensors on the car, making decisions in real-time, navigating using the most efficient route, and ensuring the car stays safe during the whole trip. AI decides when the car shifts, when to accelerate, how quickly to go, and when to brake or stop.

Without AI, the autonomous vehicle will stay parked in one spot, unmoving.

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is the method of studying human language. NLP-based AI systems can interpret what you’re saying, translate it into another language, analyze what you mean with your words, and recognize the actions you’re trying to say.

Consider asking Siri to make a phone call for you. Siri must understand what you’re asking it to do before it can make the call. In more complicated AI systems, the device will be able to translate your text in real-time, allowing you to communicate outside of your native language.

Virtual Assistants

Speaking of Siri, AI-based virtual assistants can respond to your voice commands to streamline a lot of everyday tasks. You can ask Siri a question, and it will answer you. Everything going on behind the scenes happens in fractions of a second, thanks to AI.

Realistically, Siri is acting like your assistant: it’s listening to you, interpreting what you’re saying, doing a Google search, checking for the validity of the answer, and then presenting the answer to you in seconds.

Fraud Detection

Another interesting artificial intelligence sample is fraud detection. A lot of banking companies are doing this without you realizing it, and it’s keeping you safer. Fraud detection is the practice of looking into your transaction patterns and looking for examples of fraud.

For instance, maybe your card was unexpectedly charged to leave a big tip at a restaurant or buy gift cards in a different state. Using AI, the credit card company can flag these transactions and reach out to you to make sure you made the purchase.

Real-time fraud detection like this can apply to many more users and save companies a ton of time and money. More importantly, it can keep you safer.

Predictive Maintenance

Wherever machines are used, they need to be maintained and serviced. With AI, companies can analyze machine performance through a series of sensors. The AI model will compare the performance to historical trends and established baselines, and then determine when the machine needs to be maintained.

If they notice a spindle not spinning as quickly, then the AI can send an alert to the user and prompt them to consider maintenance in the near future.

These systems can save companies time and money by avoiding unexpected downtime.

Recommendation Systems

A common AI model that a lot of people see daily is recommendation systems. Have you ever wondered how Netflix knows the next best show to suggest? This is through a complicated AI model running in the background.

While Netflix doesn’t say how their recommendation system specifically works, it’s likely looking at the tags associated with TV shows and movies you watch, analyzing how often you watch similar content, seeing what types of shows you stop watching partway through, and comparing that to their database of similar TV shows and movies.

Whenever you finish a show and see ‘You might also enjoy watching…’, understand that an AI-based recommendation system determined this.

Computer Vision

Computer vision uses AI to act like a set of human eyes. With computer vision, a camera system can look at an object, understand what it is and what it’s doing, and report that data back.

A common way is by facial recognition used on cameras or drones. A more complicated demonstration is a computer setup that determines what kind of baseball pitch is thrown, whether it is a strike or ball, and how fast the ball moved.

Financial Trading

In the financial sector, you can find AI-based financial trading systems. These systems analyze current trends in the market and compare them to historical data to make an estimate of how the market will shift in the future.

Since it’s all done with AI, it comes with a larger confidence factor and can move much faster than human traders. This has been a big selling point for many investors and has disrupted the industry.

Smart Home Automation

Anyone with an Amazon Alexa-enabled home already knows how useful AI can be in everyday life. This refers to smart home automation through AI-based systems, with Alexa being the biggest example of this.

You can simply say aloud, ‘Alexa, turn on the bedroom lights and the TV on mute,’ and Alexa will do just that. It uses an AI system to understand your requests and trigger the events.

The best part? Smart home automation can have your coffee cup hot and ready for you in the morning without you lifting a finger.

Precision Agriculture

As one of the largest industries, it’s no surprise that the agricultural business uses AI via precision agriculture. This is the practice of optimizing harvesting schedules based on weather, soil conditions, and crop health.

With AI steering the ship, farmers can increase yield and reduce waste of each harvest, giving them more money in their pockets and stocking up grocery stores.

Robotics

AI and robotics have gone together since their creation. AI acts as the brains while the robotic components act as the arms, legs, and body of the unit. Together, they can replace humans in certain tasks, especially dangerous ones like handling chemicals and toxic spills.

You can find AI-based robotics anywhere from manufacturing assembly lines all the way to the surgery table with AI-controlled surgeons.

Cybersecurity

Just like AI-based fraud detection, AI-based cybersecurity will keep your computer systems safe by looking for patterns and actions indicative of a cyberattack. AI can significantly enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of human cybersecurity experts by complementing their skills and accelerating the analysis process, rather than replacing them entirely.

Having AI-enabled cybersecurity can keep your home and business safer than ever before.

Education

AI can also help in the education space. AI-based learning can be customized and optimized to give the student the best chance of success. It can learn how the student learns, and then tailor every lesson to best suit the student’s needs.

AI in education is the best way to optimize self-paced learning. It can also provide extensive tutoring and question-answering services to the students to make sure they fully understand the subject before moving on.

Environmental Monitoring and Conservation

There are so many risks to the environment, but AI-based environmental monitoring and conservation is a way to reduce some of these risks. It works through numerous sensors scattered around outside, across the globe. The AI model will monitor all these data as a means of predicting and preventing any upcoming ecological threats.

It’s a useful tool in wildlife conservation efforts, looking into patterns of poaching and animal populations to avoid extinction and give early indicators if something is wrong. For instance, this system could find that the population of sheep is falling too quickly and the population of wolves is growing. The system can tell the user this information and even suggest methods to correct the ecological issue.

PREPARING FOR TOMORROW’S WORKFORCE WITH TODAY’S EDUCATION

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the digital landscape, becoming an integral part of how we interact, work, and innovate. As AI continues to advance, it promises to shape the future in ways we are just beginning to understand.

Johnson & Wales University College of Professional Studies offers career-relevant online undergraduate and graduate degrees that position our graduates for the workforce of the future. If you’re looking for flexibility and convenience, look no further than JWU.

For more information about completing your degree online, complete the Request Info form, call 855-JWU-1881, or email cpsadmissions@jwu.edu.

Productivity Use Cases for AI

Charter > 5 ways to use AI at work

By Helen Lee Kupp & Nichole Sterling - Facebook link

Innovation team -  simulate conversations with a virtual team using genai with prompt roles, topics clearly defined

Use the AI chatbot function that lets you talk to it (in ChatGPT, access this from the microphone icon) to set up a practice session and get feedback on how you can improve.

Prompt: I want to practice giving feedback to a colleague of mine. [Here’s the context]. Set up a scenario for me and run through the simulation to practice a feedback conversation. At the end, please wrap up with any suggestions on areas I can improve on.

Test yourself - have AI ask you questions ( eg interviews, presentations prep etc ) 

Prompt: I'm facing this challenge of [describe challenge]. These are my goals [insert goals], and here are the people involved, [insert people]. Here are also the assumptions I'm making, [insert assumptions]. Please interview me by asking one question at a time to sort out this issue. After I answer each question, you can ask the next one, building on the information I provide. Always get my answer before moving on to the next question.

AI as an editor or a content creator: Take my presentation transcript and tighten up the script.

Prompt: I recently conducted a presentation and have the transcript from Zoom/Meet/Teams. The transcript is quite verbose and includes some unnecessary details. Can you help me tighten up the script? I'm looking for a version that is concise, to the point, and retains all the key information and messages. Here is the transcript: [Insert the transcript here]. Please revise the transcript to make it more impactful and easy to present, ensuring it flows naturally and is engaging.

AI as a persona, provide feedback on my ideas to improve them and find blindspots

as “perspective taker”: Provide feedback from multiple perspectives and help me find my blindspots. 

Prompt: As we evaluate our current project of [insert project], let's identify any missing elements in our brainstorming and consider the situation from various stakeholder perspectives. Reflect on the needs, concerns, and expectations of [insert stakeholders]. Also, identify stakeholders we’re not thinking about. Think about the key assumptions, potential risks, and alternative approaches we might not have considered from each stakeholder perspective. Provide feedback on how we can improve our planning process and ensure alignment with our long-term vision and values, which are [insert vision and values].

AI as an expert data scientist: Analyze data and create visualizations for me - add causal analysis

An underused use case for AI is to upload these data sets and very quickly get charts and visuals without enlisting the help of a data scientist or analyst. (We recommend stripping the data of any sensitive or personally identifiable information first.) You can analyze data using the Data Analyst feature in the paid version of ChatGPT or in Microsoft Excel using Copilot (also paid.

Prompt: [Attach or upload the CSV file.] Please analyze the data I'm about to upload. Summarize your findings. Then create some visuals and charts for me to illustrate these key insights.

TIPS on Genai

Make time to experiment with the prompts and use cases we talk about here. Build an intuition for how paradigm shifting this technology is by getting hands-onx

Push your thinking beyond “What am I trying to replace or automate?{ to “What can I do that I could never do before with this technology?{ or “What can I do that will save me a lot of time?{ Dream and experiment bigger and push your teams to do the samex `

Create a culture of continuous experimentation among your colleagues, sharing and remixing approaches to inspire new use cases and bring together teams and expertise in unexpected ways.

Potential Challenges

Candidate Solutions

What US Governments are doing on AI - 2024  - US map w actions

When Government Technology first started working on a tracker to monitor what states and local governments are doing about AI, it quickly became clear it would be an enormous task.

As Google’s generative AI tool, Gemini, puts it, keeping pace with state and local AI efforts is akin to “watching a kaleidoscope constantly shifting its patterns,” “chasing a constantly moving target,” or “assembling a jigsaw puzzle with pieces that keep changing shape.”Human experts echo this sentiment. Erin Mills, chief marketing officer at Quorum, a legislative tracking software platform, noted the surge in AI legislation in 2024.

“I think there’s a lot of concern, because there’s all these core issues that the states have been focused on because the federal government hasn’t been moving as fast as we may have liked,” said Mills. ”People are still trying to figure it out, we’re still in the early days and understanding what the implications are for their jobs, and what the implications are for generated content.”

To provide a comprehensive understanding of how states and localities are approaching AI, we've categorized our findings into key areas:

COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS: AI TASK FORCES AND WORK GROUPS

REGULATORY FRAMEWORKS: AI GOVERNANCE AND INVENTORIES

LEGISLATIVELY DRIVEN AI: MANDATED AI PROJECTS

DEDICATED LEADERSHIP: AI OFFICIALS AND OFFICES

AI USE RESTRICTIONS 

 Erin Mills, chief marketing officer at Quorum, a legislative tracking software platform, noted the surge in AI legislation in 2024.

“I think there’s a lot of concern, because there’s all these core issues that the states have been focused on because the federal government hasn’t been moving as fast as we may have liked,” said Mills. ”People are still trying to figure it out, we’re still in the early days and understanding what the implications are for their jobs, and what the implications are for generated content.”

MASSACHUSETTS AI 

AI Task Forces & Councils:
Governor Maura Healey signed an executive order establishing the Artificial Intelligence Strategic Task Force to study AI technology and its impact on the state, private businesses, higher education institutions and constituents. The task force will conduct outreach and collect input from stakeholders and experts.

AI Governance & Inventories:

Legislatively-Mandated AI Projects:
The state has allocated $25,000,000 for development of artificial intelligence and machine learning systems.

RHODE ISLAND AI

AI Task Forces & Councils:
The state has established an AI Task Force to assess the risks and opportunities presented by the proliferation of AI and advising state policy makers.

AI Governance & Inventories:
The Department of Administration and the RI Division of Information Technology must review and evaluate the use and development of AI and automated decision systems. The evaluation should include current security and implementation procedures, the extent of algorithmic decision-making, validation and testing for biases, data sources, and data security.

Legislatively-Mandated AI Projects:

AI Leadership:
The state has created a AI Center of Excellence to promote AI policy and procedures and improve state operations. It will include the creation of a state code of ethics for AI to minimize bias and create a framework that supports and guides state employees.

State AI Use Restrictions:

Step-by-step guide for Example

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