Artificial Intelligence For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Introduction

You can hardly avoid hearing about AI today. You see AI in the movies, in books, in the news, and online. AI is part of robots, self-driving (SD) cars, drones, medical systems, online shopping sites, and all sorts of other technologies that affect your daily life in so many ways. Some people have come to trust AIs so much, that they fall asleep while their SD cars take them to their destination — illegally, of course (see “Tesla driver found asleep at wheel of self-driving car doing 150km/h” at The Guardian.com.)

Many pundits are burying you in information (and disinformation) about AI, too. Some see AI as cute and fuzzy; others see it as a potential mass murderer of the human race. The problem with being so loaded down with information in so many ways is that you struggle to separate what’s real from what is simply the product of an overactive imagination. Just how far can you trust your AI, anyway? Much of the hype about AI originates from the excessive and unrealistic expectations of scientists, entrepreneurs, and businesspersons. Artificial Intelligence For Dummies, 2nd Edition is the book you need if you feel as if you really don’t know anything about a technology that purports to be an essential element of your life.

Using various media as a starting point, you might notice that most of the useful technologies are almost boring. Certainly, no one gushes over them. AI is like that: so ubiquitous as to be humdrum. You’re using AI in some way today; in fact, you ...