In case of normal compurer technology the 1990s and the year 2021 are not very different. In the 1990s wokstation computers were invented already which includes the Unix operating system. Video gaming consoles were widespread available and letter were created of course with a computer but not with a typewriter. So the only new thing today is, that the CRT monitores were replaced by flat screens and the computer is a bit faster. But this is not a revolution but only a normal minor improvements of the last 30 years.
In the context of Artificial Intelligence the situation is much more different. The situation in 1990s and the situation today is nearly the opposite. The people in the 1990s had only a rough understanding what AI is, and no practical demonstrations are available. Instead of describing what the situation today is let us take a closer look into the past.
The first thing to mention is, that in the 1990s the internet was in an early stage. It wasn't the dominant media which includes all the other media but existing media technology like the cinema, television, books and printed journals were used instead. What the people have learned about Artificial Intelligence were published in these media. That means, the understanding of robots and AI were influenced by movies and books about the subject. Robots played only a small role in all the existing media, and it was unclear if such technology can be realized soon. There was a big gap between robots in the movies and robots realized in reality. And this gap was projected into the future. Basically spoken AI was something not available in the 1990s. It was used as part of a science fiction plot in which robots take over the world or it was explained in a computer science book, that solving the np hard problem is not possible.
This public understanding is very different from today's situation. Today the average user of the internet will see lots of videos with working robots including the source code for the software to recreate them from scratch. This includes walking robots, self driving cars and Mario AI autonomous bots. Such a library of existing software which includes textual tutorials wasn't available in the 1990s. In the past, it was difficult to find an entire book about the subject Artificial intelligence and even the advanced one have described only a very rough situation. Another problem in the 1990s was, that modern programming languages like python wasn't invented. That means it was not possible for a newbie to create a line following robot because for doing so he had to learn languages like C++ first. Basically spoken, creating such a robot was in the 1990s a multi million dollar project for a research lab at the university but not an amateur project for a weekend to learn something.
Perhaps these examples have shown, that since the 1990s many things have changed. The dominant new situation is, that the former np hard problem seems to be solved. That means the amount of papers in which mathematicians are able to proof that AI can't be realized within the next 1000 years has reduced drastically. It was replaced by the understanding, that each month a new robot is presented which is a bit more powerful than the previous one.
What would happen if a person from the 1990s gets teleported into today's time? In case of normal computing the situation would be relaxed. He can use his former knowledge about how to use a mouse and a keyboard to control a computer. He will find the same MS-DOS prompt and the same Unix command line and sending e-mails is the same like 30 years ago. But in one subject the teleported individual gets confused strongly which is the current state of AI. After sitting down in front of a computer and watching a youtube playlist he won't believe what he will see. The shown examples in robotics are so much different than what he knows that the person wouldn't understand it anymore. It would be simply too much to see a biped robot, self driving cars, autonomous drones or the poor hitchbot who is waiting on a park bench at night.
The development in robotics wasn't an abrupt event but a continuous flow of changes. But at the end, the year 2021 and 1990 have nothing in common in terms of AI. There is a huge gap between both years and not a single revolution but many of them have occurred. Most of today's AI technology like biped robots, deeplearning, and game playing AI wasn't available in the 1990s. It has entered the world without any warning and there is no sign that the development will stop someday. It seems that the subject of AI was the single driver which has changed the world into a futuristic one.
No comments:
Post a Comment