Sunday, November 24, 2013

Artificial Intelligence: A Close Encounter

When the average person talks about artificial intelligence, they frequently recall 2001: A Space Odyssey, Terminator and a myriad of other movies, T.V. shows and games in which computers go against their human masters. However, what most people don't realize is that while computers aren't capable of becoming sentient and over-throwing their owners, artificial intelligence has developed to the point of becoming an effective tool for solving complex problems. I have been lucky enough to witness the power of artificial intelligence first hand!

Between June 2011 and January 2013, I worked on and off at a small start up company in my hometown. Until fairly recently, I was unable to talk about the work I did there due to a non-disclosure agreement, but now that my superior has received a patent for his good work, I am able to discuss it somewhat.

During my 1.5 year internship with Cognisense Labs, I helped improve my mentor's invention, an autonomous system for planting flower bulbs. This system consisted of an industrial robotic arm, an image capture device and a powerful computer for running my mentor's (now patented) image analysis algorithms. This system was used to locate, orient and plant flower bulbs into crates before being taken to a storage facility.



Robots and artificial intelligence are key pieces to solving the problem of eliminating the need for humans to perform dull, repetitive and sometimes dangerous tasks. Prior to working on his robotic farming endeavors, my mentor invented a driver-less mine sweeping vehicle to clean up former war-zones safely, eliminating the need for innocent people to put themselves in harms way.



Some people see artificial intelligence as death and destruction, but I see the opposite. Artificial intelligence is a catalyst for making the world a better place!

2 comments:

  1. Hi Jonathon, I liked how you used your internship as an example and tied it in with artificial intelligence. Instead of focusing on big projects like IBM’s supercomputers, you focus on something smaller, a robot that can plant flower bulbs, something that people could easily overlook. I have not really interned yet, but I am glad to see that you helped someone who was inventing something new. You mentor seems to be an innovative person, and I wish him good luck in prospering from his inventions. Keep us up to date, and we look forward to seeing your next posts.

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  2. Thanks a lot for sharing your valuable experiences with AI during your previous research (internship). Also the blog is full of your passion about the research. I think you are very lucky to have such a good opportunity to practice the theoretical knowledge and to solve the real problem. I agree that the most important task for AI is to assist human in daily life but not replace human beings. As the example you described there, the AI serves as a farmer's smarter tool to take care of plants.

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