AI Will Change the World and Even the Course of Our Species

There is no question that the creation of artificial intelligence [AI] and the speed of its own advancement in this rapidly progressing and challenging industry is surprising us all. AI problems that seemed nearly unsolvable just a few years ago are now being solved. What’s even more surprising though is that even as AI becomes integrated into the fabric of everyday life, the possibilities of the technology, in terms of achieving major advances “in the sciences of mind and life” could be incalculable and reach farther than anyone could even imagine. In fact, the eminent British physicist Stephen Hawking predicted back in 2014 that success in creation of AI will be “the biggest event in human history.”

Meanwhile, from a financial perspective, research firm Markets and Markets, predicts that the AI market is forecast to hit $5.05 billion by fiscal-year 2020 thanks to the increased relevancy of various AI technologies affecting many aspects of commerce and society from finance to healthcare, to retail.

George Lee, CIO of Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) investment banking division told CNBC on Wednesday that artificial intelligence is a “momentous development” that should not be viewed as a glimpse of the future.

“In Silicon Valley, it’s a glimpse of the present,” said Lee, adding that firms are pushing hard to create faster and more powerful technologies to support machine learning. Google-parent Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) to name a few, are hiring AI researchers at an unprecedented rate, and spending huge amounts of money into the race for better learning algorithms and smarter computer systems.

“As awesome as the internet has been, it will be best remembered as really the predicate for machine learning,” noted Lee, predicting machine learning will “change our world and even the course of our species in ways that are hard to predict today.”