Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1316584
9 OPINION 10.12.2020 T he year of the pandemic was horrible. People lost their lives. Our houses became our prisons, and we had to restrain our social instincts. It was all very surreal, something you only see in Hollywood dis- aster movies. However, did you ever stop and wonder how we could sur- vive a pandemic without tech- nology? In particular, Artificial Intelligence (AI)? Most probably, if we speak about electricity, there is no debate, and we all agree that it is fundamental for our day- to-day life. But AI is a little bit more elusive. Our devices do not specify that an AI lies at the heart of a particular tech- nology, so it is hard for people to recognise it. A recent survey asked peo- ple whether they had ever in- teracted with an AI. Only 50% of them admitted that they did. What's interesting is the fact that when they were made aware of some typical AI ap- plications, over 95% indicated that they had used one of these services over the last year. I'm sure that if I were to ask you the same question, many of you would answer that you don't use AI. But I can bet that many of you use it daily and you're heavily dependent on it. Let me give you some examples. Every day, people look for all sorts of information online. ey usually do this through an online search engine. e Google Search engine alone handles around 5.6 billion searches per day. It is the AI that is sifting through billions of pages per second and pro- viding users with a list of pos- sible search results. Online shopping was the big victor throughout this year. More than 2 billion people bought something online. AI is vital to help us locate the prod- ucts we want to buy. Not only in the search engine, but many sites like Amazon also recommend additional products. Different things you might be interested in, sug- gestions on what other people bought, recommending pack- age deals and so on. It is the AI who processes the billions of online purchases and provides customers with rec- ommendations. Furthermore, when the buyer proceeds with the checkout, the AI is work- ing in the background, ensuring that the transaction is valid and safe from any fraudulent activ- ity. e only way in which we can still socialise with each other is through our electronic devices. At the top of the list are social networking sites such as Face- book, Instagram or TikTok. At the heart of such systems lies an AI, sifting through millions of online posts and selecting the ones which might be inter- esting. e curation of the social feed is automatic; the AI decides what you should see and what you shouldn't, thus providing every one of us with a slightly different viewpoint over reality. Work too shifted from the offices into our homes (where possible). Because of this, productivity tools become extremely important. 60% of workers already have a digital assistant (such as Siri, Cortana, Alexa or Google Home) either on their mobile phone or at home. Just by talking to them us- ing natural languages (such as English, Italian, etc.), users can; hear an overview of the weath- er conditions, have their emails read while filtering the spam, schedule an appointment and much more. AI is at the heart of such sys- tems; listening to the user, un- derstanding the instructions, executing them and replying using the same natural lan- guage. Of course, there are many other examples. Just con- sider writing a document on a word processor such as Mi- crosoft Word or Grammarly. e AI is correcting the text for both grammatical and syntacti- cal mistakes. It is suggesting al- ternate words, even comment- ing on your writing style, and it can also translate the text in any language. Of course, spending time at home means that we also need to do house chores and entertain ourselves. AI too is fundamental in both of these functions. As an example, let's look at robotic vacuum clean- ers which have become quite popular in the past year. e AI controls the move- ments of the robot, ensures the cleaning of the entire house, protects the robot from po- tential dangers (such as falling down the stairs) and redirects it back to its charging bay when the battery is low. Other devices such as mod- ern air conditioners, ovens, fridges and coffee machines (to name a few) all have some AI to manage their most complex functions. When it comes to entertain- ment, the most obvious use of AI is in digital games. A foot- ball game like FIFA not only al- lows you to play against the AI but also assists you in moving your teammates. Practically, all modern games have some sophisticated AI who strives to keep the play- er engaged. Other passive forms of entertainment such as streaming services like Netflix or Disney+ use AI to display a selection of movies which the user is most likely to enjoy. Some of these movies (such as Carmen Sandiego or Black Mirror: Bandersnatch) use AI to give viewers the freedom to make limited choices. When watching foreign films, AI is not capable of translat- ing the dialogue but can also display dynamically generated sub-titles. ese examples are just the tip of the iceberg, and there are loads of other applications of AI in our day-to-day life. If I had to ask you whether you had ever interacted with an AI, I'm sure that you would confirm that you use it daily. So can you imagine your- self going through a pandem- ic without AI? Probably not! Hence why experts are refer- ring to AI as the new electric- ity. Because it is pervasive, used everywhere and we barely real- ise it is changing our lives for the better, until we lose it! A pandemic without Artificial Intelligence Alexiei Dingli Prof Alexiei Dingli is a Professor of AI at the University of Malta and has been conducting research and working in the field of AI for more than two decades, assisting different companies to implement AI solutions. He forms part of the Malta.AI task-force, set up by the Maltese government, aimed at making Malta one of the top AI countries in the world