This Is AI — A Broad Look at Artificial Intelligence

This Is AI — A Broad Look at Artificial Intelligence

Discovery Channel’s co-produced documentary This Is AI is, to a large extent, undeniably a solid advertisement for IBM’s own products and technologies. Even so, when it comes to the cutting-edge field of artificial intelligence, only a giant like IBM—one that stands in the top tier across the board—can truly offer a clearer view of AI from so many different angles. And with Discovery’s documentary craftsmanship behind it, This Is AI manages to maintain a fairly high standard rather than simply collapsing into the advertising industry’s usual formula. The film provides accessible, accurate, and vivid introductions to nearly every major area of contemporary AI, while also looking ahead with hope and expectation. It is well worth watching.

For the general public with little direct exposure to artificial intelligence, the concept of AI often remains fragmented, shaped by films, television, and news headlines, and people’s attitudes toward it tend to vary widely. In 2016, Google’s AlphaGo defeated world Go champion Lee Sedol, and the news briefly pushed AI to the center of public attention. Some people exclaimed that the kind of advanced artificial intelligence seen in The Terminator might soon replace humanity, while others felt that people had already been crying wolf since Deep Blue defeated a chess grandmaster decades ago—and the wolf still had not arrived, so all of this was merely needless alarmism.

So what is the truth? This Is AI suggests that reality is neither as pessimistic as the first view nor as optimistic as the second. Put simply, artificial intelligence has already, quietly and steadily, permeated every corner of the world, beginning to assist, collaborate with, enhance, or replace human labor. Yet it is still perhaps a long way off from possessing autonomous will and replacing humanity as the dominant force of civilization on Earth. In the eyes of some experts, that distance is called the “singularity,” and we may already be quite close to it. Even if true singularity remains far away, for some people, the destruction caused when AI replaces the jobs they depend on for survival is already no different from an apocalypse.

So what exactly is artificial intelligence? Without even a basic understanding of it, any judgment is little more than fantasy. In that sense, This Is AI offers a rigorous yet accessible account that provides an objective and detailed foundation for public discussion of AI.

In terms of content, This Is AI introduces applications of artificial intelligence in information processing, semantic analysis, autonomous driving, healthcare, education, and physical assistance. Most of its examples are built around IBM’s Watson AI system, showcasing various application scenarios developed on top of it, including competing alongside human contestants in debates and quiz shows. The documentary also presents AI’s progress in healthcare through the perspective of a data scientist living with Parkinson’s disease. Other cases include wearable technology helping blind runners participate in marathons, among others. Some of these examples are already relatively mature, some are clearly still in the exploratory stage, and others involve ethical dilemmas or have already ended in failure. But taken as a whole, compared with many other industries, artificial intelligence is advancing with both resilience and speed.

So in the face of this fast-approaching wave of AI, how should humanity respond? “Keep learning” may be the most important lesson the film offers. No matter how far AI develops, it remains fundamentally different from human beings, with each having its own strengths. On the one hand, uniquely human emotional traits, as well as instincts and modes of thought shaped by billions of years of evolution, are qualities that AI may find difficult to possess anytime soon. On the other hand, even in analysis and judgment, AI and humans each have their own distinctive advantages.

As artificial intelligence brings humanity a disruptive transformation comparable to the arrival of electricity, it is no longer likely that we can rely on a little knowledge and raw instinct to carry us through an entire lifetime. How to better make use of our strengths as human beings, and how to secure our own place in the world, may require a lifetime of continuous learning and unending exploration.