Weekly Groww Digest      4 June 2023 Sensex: 62,547.11 ▲ 0.0 | Groww Digest

 Weekly Groww Digest  
  
4 June 2023

Sensex: 62,547.11 ▲ 0.07%
Nifty: 18,534.10 ▲ 0.19%

Jan 20 2023, around 5 pm.

Jennifer had just reached a dance studio.

While getting out of her car, she received a call from an unknown source.

Suspicious – but she picked up the call.

Jennifer heard the voice of a young girl screaming. The girl was saying she “messed up”.

Jennifer immediately recognized the voice. It was Brianna – her elder daughter.

Then she heard her daughter's voice in the background while a man’s voice came on the phone.

He told her that Brianna had been kidnapped. He threatened Jennifer with consequences. And he demanded $1 million in ransom.

Jennifer ran inside the dance studio shouting for help. The police were called. More calls were made.

For Jennifer, relief came fast – her daughter was absolutely fine – she hadn’t been kidnapped.

But then, whose voice was on the call?

Jennifer was sure the voice on the phone was her daughter, Brianna. Everything matched – the accent, tones, pronunciation – everything.

The era of Artificial Intelligence – AI, in short – is here.

The voice on the phone was fake. It was an AI mimicking Brianna’s voice.

A scammer was using AI voice to fool Jennifer into thinking her daughter had been kidnapped.

AI is taking us into an era of absurd possibilities.

This write-up is going to be a bit long.

On one hand, it has the potential to help us in ways we can’t even imagine. On the other hand, it can cause immense damage.

Both, the benefit and the damage, can be far greater than anything we’ve seen before.

There were AI-created images of Donald Trump being arrested. For a brief moment, it triggered outrage among his supporters.

Forget pictures, AI is even starting to do magic with videos.

AI has also proven more effective than many doctors in detecting cancer by looking at patients’ reports like scans and X-rays. One example of how AI can help us.

You must have seen videos of some cars – mostly Tesla – driving themselves. That’s AI.

AI is a tool. It doesn’t know what is right or wrong. Humans have to decide what’s right and what's not.

How does AI work?

It’s complicated. And we’re not experts.

All the software on computers you see works on algorithms. Algorithms written by human beings – engineers.

Everything is written by someone.

The algorithm tells the computer what to do. Something like: if this happens, do this. If not, then do that.

Obviously, it is a lot more complicated than that. But you get the gist of it.

Take this case: there is an office with 4 floors. There’s one lift in the office.

When not in use, the lift is on the ground floor. Whenever someone calls the lift, the lift goes to their floor from the ground floor.

This takes electricity – of course.

Someone noticed that the maximum number of people in the office is located on the 4th floor.

So the probability of the lift being called to the 4th floor was higher than on other floors.

The lift’s engineer programmed the lift to rest on the 4th floor at all times instead of the ground floor.

This way, some electricity could be saved.

Someone noticed a pattern again – after 6 pm, most people on the 4th floor had left the office. Now, most people were on the 2nd floor.

The lift’s engineer programmed the lift to rest on the 4th floor before 6 pm and on the 2nd floor after 6 pm.

You can observe, the lift’s algorithm became a bit more complicated. But it works better.

Someone noticed another pattern – that all floors are empty in the morning since nobody is in the offices. Everybody is coming to the offices.

The lift’s engineer programmed the lift to rest on the 4th floor before 6 pm and on the 2nd floor after 6 pm, and on the ground floor before 10 am.

The algorithm is now even more complicated as more variables are added.

Someone observed a different pattern – the office is empty on Saturdays and Sundays.

The lift’s engineer programmed the lift to rest on the 4th floor before 6 pm and on the 2nd floor after 6 pm, ground floor before 10 am, and ground floor on Saturdays and Sundays.