Why is AI booming now?
A neural network has been out since the nineties with the seminal paper of Yann LeCun. However, it started to become famous around the year 2012. Explained by three critical factors for its popularity are:
- Hardware
- Data
- Algorithm
Machine learning is an experimental field, meaning it needs to have data to test new ideas or approaches. With the boom of the internet, data became more easily accessible. Besides, giant companies like NVIDIA and AMD have developed high-performance graphics chips for the gaming market.
Hardware
In the last twenty years, the power of the CPU has exploded, allowing the user to train a small deep-learning model on any laptop. However, to process a deep-learning model for computer vision or deep learning, you need a more powerful machine. Thanks to the investment of NVIDIA and AMD, a new generation of GPU (graphical processing unit) are available. These chips allow parallel computations. It means the machine can separate the computations over several GPU to speed up the calculations.
For instance, with an NVIDIA TITAN X, it takes two days to train a model called ImageNet against weeks for a traditional CPU. Besides, big companies use clusters of GPU to train deep learning model with the NVIDIA Tesla K80 because it helps to reduce the data center cost and provide better performances.
Data
Deep learning is the structure of the model, and the data is the fluid to make it alive. Data powers the artificial intelligence. Without data, nothing can be done. Latest Technologies have pushed the boundaries of data storage. It is easier than ever to store a high amount of data in a data center.
Internet revolution makes data collection and distribution available to feed machine learning algorithm. If you are familiar with Flickr, Instagram or any other app with images, you can guess their AI potential. There are millions of pictures with tags available on these websites. Those pictures can be used to train a neural network model to recognize an object on the picture without the need to manually collect and label the data.
Artificial Intelligence combined with data is the new gold. Data is a unique competitive advantage that no firm should neglect. AI provides the best answers from your data. When all the firms can have the same technologies, the one with data will have a competitive advantage over the other. To give an idea, the world creates about 2.2 exabytes, or 2.2 billion gigabytes, every day.
A company needs exceptionally diverse data sources to be able to find the patterns and learn and in a substantial volume.
Algorithm
Hardware is more powerful than ever, data is easily accessible, but one thing that makes the neural network more reliable is the development of more accurate algorithms. Primary neural networks are a simple multiplication matrix without in-depth statistical properties. Since 2010, remarkable discoveries have been made to improve the neural network
Artificial intelligence uses a progressive learning algorithm to let the data do the programming. It means, the computer can teach itself how to perform different tasks, like finding anomalies, become a chatbot.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are two confusing terms. Artificial intelligence is the science of training machine to imitate or reproduce human task. A scientist can use different methods to train a machine. At the beginning of the AI's ages, programmers wrote hard-coded programs, that is, type every logical possibility the machine can face and how to respond. When a system grows complex, it becomes difficult to manage the rules. To overcome this issue, the machine can use data to learn how to take care of all the situations from a given environment.
The most important features to have a powerful AI is to have enough data with considerable heterogeneity. For example, a machine can learn different languages as long as it has enough words to learn from.
AI is the new cutting-edge technology. Ventures capitalist are investing billions of dollars in startups or AI project. McKinsey estimates AI can boost every industry by at least a double-digit growth rate.