Artificial Intelligence:
Almost Inescapable Consider that when you check your e-mail, your inbox is probably protected from the 70 percent of e-mail that is “spam”—junk mail we did not ask for—by artificial intelligence programs that sort through incoming mail to take the junk out.
Unimaginable just a few years ago, if you own a “smartphone” you probably have access to a weather app with a speech interface. Ask “What will the weather be like tomorrow?” and Apple’s Siri or Microsoft’s Cortana will give you an audible reply, such as “It doesn’t look so good tomorrow. Down to 45°F and raining.”
Robots are no longer reserved for science fiction movies; they are in the home. The American company iRobot has sold more than 10 million robots for personal use, including its popular “Roomba” which uses some very basic computerized algorithmic intelligence to vacuum your household floor.
If you have used a GPS to navigate in your car, purchased a book recommended to you by a vendor such as Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or watched a movie suggested to you by a Web site such as Netflix or Hulu, you have interacted with artificial intelligence!