By Lori L. Riley, Times West Virginian
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — For some people, the term “artificial intelligence” conjures up images of science fiction war games or assassin droids in Star Wars.
But those images don’t tell us much about what AI really is, and they definitely don’t help when it comes to the public’s misconception of AI.
“The concept of artificial intelligence often raises concerns because there is a fear that it’s fake or will replace human thinking,” said Sally Embrey, vice president of public health and medical technologies at DataRobot, which recently opened an office in Morgantown. “But the truth is that AI can’t ever fully replace human decision-making.”
Clearly, it’s the word “artificial” that throws people. It seems to say that results or predictions are somehow out of our hands as humans.
But, it’s humans who guide the intelligence by articulating how the data is used. In fact, we’re now seeing more of the term “augmented intelligence” rather than artificial intelligence. After all, there’s nothing artificial about the programmers, or coders, who write the models. They are brilliant people who set up the simulations and define the parameters. They get the system going and essentially say, “Now run with it.” …