What are the connections and differences between artificial intelligence and automation?

Artificial intelligence can enhance automation by optimizing processes, granular data analysis, increasing data accuracy, and improving customer experience.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation have dual aspects. They have the potential to bring huge benefits to humanity, but they also have the potential to lead to future dystopias. In this possible future, machines and robots may replace many of the roles and responsibilities of humans.

However, this idea failed to achieve the expected results. On the one hand, science fiction often exaggerates the development of artificial intelligence and automation technologies. The vision of humans traveling in spaceships from planet to planet is still a distant idea. When it comes to space travel, we're still only taking small steps.

Therefore, artificial intelligence is gradually moving towards this goal. Automation is closely related to it. We’ll take a closer look at their definitions, connections, and differences.

What is artificial intelligence?

According to the definition of Encyclopedia Britannica, artificial intelligence is described as the ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks similar to intelligent creatures. The term is often used for developing systems with characteristics similar to human intelligence, such as the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalize, and learn from past experience.

Although AI has made what are considered huge advances in processing speed and memory, its flexibility cannot match that of humans in a wider range of activities. But when narrowed down to specific areas, AI has made significant progress in areas such as search engines, handwriting recognition, e-commerce, computer vision, cybersecurity, and even some advanced medical diagnostics.

What is automation?

The definition of automation in the Encyclopedia Britannica is: the application of machines to tasks that would otherwise be performed by humans, or increasingly to tasks that would otherwise be impossible Completed tasks. While the term mechanization is often used to mean machines simply replacing human labor, automation usually means machines being integrated into an autonomous system. Automation has revolutionized the fields in which it was introduced, and almost every aspect of modern life has been affected by it.

With the widespread application of automation devices and control systems in mechanized production lines, the automobile industry has achieved a major technological leap. These devices not only improve production efficiency, but also have the potential to replace traditional manual assembly lines. Automation technology essentially replaces human work through the use of machines, including mechanical, electrical, and computer controls. Preset instructions are used to control the execution of certain tasks without human intervention.

Automation technology has penetrated into every aspect of our daily lives. Whether it is traffic signals, warehouse management (including picking, transportation and inventory) or autonomous driving of cars and aircraft, they have become an indispensable and important part of life.

How does artificial intelligence fit into automation?

Edwin Pahk, vice president of business growth at Aquant, believes that artificial intelligence is the most natural evolution of traditional automation that people have seen in the past few decades. Automation, he added, is when a machine executes a sequence of instructions, entirely programmed by a human, to complete a task faster and more efficiently. If an action is not explicitly described in the instruction, the machine cannot do it. However, with artificial intelligence, machines can adopt the broad rules outlined by humans and determine their own path to success.

Pahk said: "Automation can be used in conjunction with artificial intelligence such as machine learning and deep learning to produce faster and more accurate results." Elaine Lee, chief data scientist at Mimecast, even said, Artificial intelligence is a term that covers all aspects of automating tasks, from machine learning to deep learning.

She said: “The application integration of these AI-enabled tools enables businesses to streamline workflows, reduce human errors and improve operational efficiency. By mimicking human intuition, AI is helping to prevent and mitigate more effectively. cyber threats while easing the burden on understaffed cybersecurity teams.”

How to use artificial intelligence to increase automation?

Therefore, one of the main goals of artificial intelligence is to promote the development of automation. AI can enhance automation by generating faster, more personalized processes, improving data utilization and accuracy, and improving the overall customer experience.

Rick Wagner, senior director of product management at SailPoint, said, “Artificial intelligence can help enterprises build, manage and maintain access models (which identity can access what), automate lifecycle processes, and reduce/eliminate the need for traditional authentication. ”

Wagner listed several ways artificial intelligence can be used to increase automation. Learning is a major aspect. Artificial intelligence can be used to help automated systems learn:

• Onboarding patterns for applications.

• Commonalities between identities and applications/authorizations to automate the creation of business and technical roles.

• Response to stakeholder decisions, such as approval of access requests to recommend policy changes to improve efficiency.

Use account mode to suggest configuration strategies.

While automation predates the development of AI tools, particularly in computing, both are now often used together to maximize protection in complex threat environments.

It’s important to remember that automation software is designed to follow pre-programmed rules and alleviate the need for humans to complete routine, error-prone tasks. In turn, they can focus on other, more complex responsibilities of their role that require greater attention to detail and have a more direct impact on their organization's security posture.

Lee said: "AI can take automated tasks to the next level by analyzing data relevant to that task, providing actionable insights into specific anomalies in near real-time." In the case of advanced email and collaboration security, artificial intelligence can be applied to automate tasks, analyze language clues, flag threats in emails, and warn users of potential network breaches."

Automation-agnostic AI Applying

artificial intelligence doesn’t have to be bundled with automation. There are a variety of AI applications that have little to do with automation.

Artificial intelligence applications like Siri and Alexa involve a machine demonstrating and practicing something similar to what we call the human mind. These systems are not tied to automation," Pahk said.

On the other hand, there are a lot of automated features that have nothing to do with AI and don’t require any kind of AI input. For example, there are many automation patterns that are fixed only on repetitive, guided tasks. After executing a job, the system stops thinking.

An example of an automated system that does not use artificial intelligence is a traffic light that is automated, obviously without input from artificial intelligence.

But Wagner believes that this situation is changing. As artificial intelligence matures and system prices decrease, it is entering various fields, even mundane fields like traffic lights. Expect some widespread implementation of AI-based traffic lights sometime in the next few years. In most computing examples, artificial intelligence is closely related to automation.

Wagner said: "A direct approach is to recommend different types of roles and access profiles by analyzing identities, accounts and entitlements. An indirect approach is to learn the response patterns of access requests to recommend policies of changes, which might indicate that approvals are always completed and therefore can be changed to automate access."

Are AI and Automation a Threat to Jobs?

People may see some anti-automation movement is formed, as certain areas will be severely affected. But ultimately, innovation often makes certain types of jobs obsolete, while it also opens up new vistas of employment opportunities.

Boston University School of Communication’s Communication Research Center (CRC), in partnership with market research company Ipsos, conducted a media and technology survey asking about the threats of artificial intelligence. Participants were asked directly about their views on AI replacing human jobs such as journalists, psychological counselors, hiring managers, etc.

Facts show that more young people than older people, and more men than women (about 10%), are open to artificial intelligence-driven machines replacing humans in various jobs. When considering AI replacing all listed job types, those aged 18 to 34 are more than 30% more willing to accept AI than those aged 55 or older.

Three-quarters of respondents across all age, gender, race and income groups said letting AI replace these jobs does not seem like a good idea. A quarter thought it was definitely or probably a good idea.

The above is the detailed content of What are the connections and differences between artificial intelligence and automation?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!