AI AND Robotics : Greater Intelligence and Better Precision

Arobotic butler serves you tea in a hotel. A driver-less cab takes you from

the airport to your home. A robotic pet dog snuggles up at your feet when you

enter your apartment. All this may seem to be from a science fiction movie, but

actually these are all some of the exciting new applications that are being

delivered today, thanks to the wonders of artificial intelligence. AI has always

been looked upon as a means to make robots think like humans. Such robots not

only perform tasks for humans but also emulate human behavior. Though robots

with human-like intelligence still remain futuristic, it doesn't mean that

there's no development happening to strive and achieve the same.

The story so far



If we review the milestones achieved till now, we won't see robots as shown

in science-fiction movies coming to reality, but yes, a noticeable milestone

achieved in past was that of a machine beating a human in the game of chess

(Deep Blue computer beating World Champion Gary Kasporov). AI has come a long

way through research, but we still question all the promises that this

technology has made. If we lower our expectations, we'll see that it's just not

robotics where AI is used. It goes much beyond that. Almost in every domain of

our life we'll have some part of AI being implemented. For instance, AI can be

found in the mail client that rejects junk e-mails to the software in the car

that will make it decelerate and apply brakes automatically if the driver fails

to press brakes on time. The applications and uses for artificial intelligent

systems are endless.

AI for enhancing business



Business applications have been utilizing the prowess of AI to try and make

better sense of of information. Over the past few years, business applications

requiring or benefiting from artificial intelligence has accelerated. In real

time business environment applications based on Artificial Neural Network

techniques are being used for complex problem-solving and decision support

systems such as insurance risk assessment. The business applicability of AI

techniques has spread across functions ranging from finance management to

forecasting and production, and has widely been adopted in areas of risk

management, compliance, and securities trading also, along with an extension

into customer relationship management (CRM).

Here's a hypothetical nanorobot that swims through blood vessels. This device finds its way using camera mounted in front and contains payload for the affected area.

Business Intelligence solutions are based on AI techniques that analyze wide

array of data across multiple variables to determine patterns or relationships,

for example sales data or customer buying habits. Also AI is used in prediction

software that monitor the monetary flows or the stock market. Many banks use

such prediction software that monitor and analyze millions of transactions of

the stock market and suggest which stocks are safe to invest.

Even for automation of business processes, AI is used. Smart-Agents or Bots

can continuously monitor information on a network and upon finding a specific

task, can provide the desired response. It's especially useful when there is

shared data that's available in a common standard such as XML. For instance, a

Bot can be used in a CRM system and check for a customer account balance falling

below a specified value. In case it does, the client is sent a notification

instantly.

The benefits of AI adoption include reduced risk of fraud, increased revenues

from existing customers due to newer opportunities, avoidance of fines resulting

from non-compliance and averted securities trade exceptions that could result in

delayed settlement, if not detected.Businesses depend on AI for decision making,

analyzing the market scenario, predicting financial growth, etc but since most

AI techniques learn from trial and error, it needs to be seen how AI

applications can be used for mission critical environments, where even a single

error can be fatal for the business

Robots to replace humans



Robots can be used in place of humans to increase precision, miniaturization,
smaller incisions, decreased blood loss, and reduce trauma to patients. They can

also reduce the amount of manpower used for carrying tasks like surgery or even

patient sample collection and delivery. In fact the first unmanned robotic

surgery was carried out in the year 2006 in Italy.

Usage of robots in medicine is not new and reasons for using robots are

plenty. A good example of human machine combination for surgery is the 'da

Vinci' surgical system. This system has been used extensively in surgery for

prostate cancer, hysterectomy and mitral valve repair. To accomplish these

complex tasks, 'da Vinci' comprises of three portions: a surgical console, four

arms and high definition 3D vision. Some breakthrough has also been achieved in

controlling a small wireless device of 1.5 mm diameter inside the human body. In

the next part, we shall further elaborate on future trends in medicine.

Nanorobots



Think of a microscopic machine that is able to perform complex tasks on
instructions. Also imagine a small robot that moves in the blood stream of a

patient and directly delivers payload (medication) to the affected area inside

the body. Though still in conceptual phase, this is what the interesting world

of nanorobotics is all about. By definition, nanorobotics is the technology of

creating microscopic machines or robots (on a nanometer scale). Lot of research

is being done to apply this technology in the medical domain.

Drugs & nanorobots



Bioavailability of the drug is defined as presence of drug molecules in the
affected area inside the body. A complete bioavailability of medicine can be

achieved using nanorobots. These machines would be 0.5-3 micrometer in size so

that they can easily move around inside capillaries. Material used to build

these nanorobots would be carbon due to its strength and favorable

characteristics. The use of special isotope of carbon would further help in

tracking these robots using an MRI scan. These devices would be injected inside

patient's body and then tracked for progress.

Cell repair machines



The other interesting app of nanotechnology is cell repair using molecular
devices. It has been proven that molecules have the ability to recognize, repair

and destroy other molecules. It is also possible to insert molecules inside a

cell using needles without damaging them. Now if molecular machines are built

and injected in cells they would be able to effectively repair cells, even those

that are dead. In fact, one can even repair a complete tissue. Further, all

these repaired tissues would eventually lead to a healthy organ. Further

advancements can be done in molecular machines by making them intelligent, ie

instead of doing specialized work, these devices can demonstrate artificial

intelligence.