The Acronyms They are a-changin’

By Ernest Worthman, IEEE Senior Member

December 7, 2017

Remember when AI meant artificial intelligence? That was last week. This week, AI stands for Assisted, Augmented, or Actionable intelligence. And ML is no longer machine learning, it is MI or machine intelligence. Shades of Terminator!

I follow the person I most admire in today’s society – Stephen Hawking. Over the past few years, he, and some other notable individuals (Elon Musk, Peter Thiel), have been expressing concerns over how potentially powerful “AX” systems can become. And it makes some sense, especially now that AI is morphing into other functions.

The theory is that AI will continue to scale up until it is capable of some sort of general intelligence. Well, that might be challenging. The progression of deep learning systems capable of human-like cognition would take hardware to a level that is not practical in terms of processing power and footprint. Therefore, if that level is reached it will be with another platform, quantum computing is considered the forerunner.

But here it comes. Let us see where the split from AI comes. Actionable intelligence for example is the case where critical information is immediately available for utilization and used to effectively and precisely deal with a particular situation. In customer service, it means having the critical customer and item data available in real time so intelligent decisions can be made with a high degree of certainty. In the military, it is information that can be used to exploit a situation without going through the full intelligence verification process.

In retail, it consists of images, behavior analysis, social media and various human “signals” that can predict actions.

While these are rudimentary applications, it implies that AI is taking a step beyond just analysis into “understanding” – using more fuzzy logic deep learning. There is the vector.

So actionable intelligence differs from artificial intelligence. It takes AI to the next step. Actionable intelligence is being touted as AI with cognition. Exactly what some of the great minds today are concerned about.

Next come machine intelligence. As opposed to machine learning, machine intelligence is the marriage of AI (artificial intelligence, in this case) and machine learning. MI goes beyond the traditional logic statements used by AI systems to store learned or assumptive data for application to some future problem or situation. Another fork in the road.

I found this description of MI by Shivon Zilis, and it seems pretty spot on. She wrote: “Machine intelligence technologies cut across a vast array of problem types (from classification and clustering to natural language processing and computer vision) and methods (from support vector machines to deep belief networks).”

A bit simplistic, but reading between the lines the words natural language and deep belief stand out. These are the next iterations of analytics – fuzzy analytics if you will – the kind that make machines, well, human.

This is only the tip if the iceberg. Much of this is in development but with the ramp up of hardware processing power, this is going to get some traction. Once machine intelligence gets legs, there will be a real shakeup in many of the existing aging industries, as well as jump-starting others (automated assistants and real functional robots, for example).

It will be interesting to see all the tangential directions this stuff goes. Meanwhile, I need a brain implant to keep all the acronyms straight!

Ernest Worthman is the Executive Editor/Applied Wireless Technology. His 20-plus years of editorial experience includes being the Editorial Director of Wireless Design and Development and Fiber Optic Technology, the Editor of RF Design, the Technical Editor of Communications Magazine, Cellular Business, Global Communications and a Contributing Technical Editor to Mobile Radio Technology, Satellite Communications, as well as computer-related periodicals such as Windows NT. His technical writing practice client list includes RF Industries, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Agilent Technologies, Advanced Linear Devices, Ceitec, SA, and others. Before becoming exclusive to publishing, he was a computer consultant and regularly taught courses and seminars in applications software, hardware technology, operating systems, and electronics. Ernest’s client list has included Lucent Technologies, Jones Intercable, Qwest, City and County of Denver, TCI, Sandia National Labs, Goldman Sachs, and other businesses. His credentials include a BS, Electronic Engineering Technology; A.A.S, Electronic Digital Technology. He has held a Colorado Post-Secondary/Adult teaching credential, member of IBM’s Software Developers Assistance Program and Independent Vendor League, a Microsoft Solutions Provider Partner, and a life member of the IEEE. He has been certified as an IBM Certified OS2 consultant and trainer; WordPerfect Corporation Developer/Consultant and Lotus Development Corporation Developer/Consultant. He was also a first-class FCC technician in the early days of radio. Ernest Worthman may be contacted at: [email protected].