Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing innumerable aspects of our lives, education being one of them. AI has transformed the way we learn, the relationship between the student and the teacher and the very manner in which our curriculum is perceived. This article, the third part of a series on the applications of artificial intelligence, delineates how AI has come to transform the education sector, as we know it.
The biggest contribution of AI to the education sector has been towards enhancing and streamlining the system of teaching students with varying needs across the spectrum, from elementary schools to adult learning centers. Students can be mentally developed in the left side of the brain with more analytical skills or they can be mentally developed in the right side of the brain with more creative and literary skills. Likewise, there may be students with different interests and passions. A strictly uniform curriculum does not suit all students of the same class because people differ in their learning ability and interests.
AI-Enabled Hyper-Personalization
AI is thus being used to customise curricula according to specific needs of each student of a single class. This is being done through the power of machine learning via a method called hyper-personalization. The AI powered system studies and examines the profile of a student and prescribes suitable curricula for her/him. According to a report, it is expected that by the year 2024 onwards, almost 50 percent of learning management tools will be powered by AI capabilities. These AI-enabled e-Learning tools will touch over $6 Billion in market size by 2024.
Smart Learning Tools
Machine Learning and AI are also defining the way hyperper sonalized and on-demand digital content is created to digitise the learning environment. Now students do not have to rote-learn chapter after chapter from textbooks. They are absorbing learning material in the form of condensed bits of information in the form of smaller study guides, chapter summaries, flashcards, as well as short smart notes designed for better reading and comprehension. Learning is therefore becoming gradually paperless. AI systems also have an online interactive interface that helps in putting in place a system of feedback from students to professors regarding areas they are facing trouble understanding.
Digital Conversations
AI systems are also being used to develop the system of tutoring with personalized conversational education assistants. These autonomous conversational agents are capable of answering questions, providing assistance with learning or assignments, and strengthening concepts by throwing up additional information and learning material to reinforce the curriculum. “These intelligent assistants are also enhancing adaptive learning features so that each of the students can learn at their own pace or time frames”.
Adoption of Voice Assistants
In addition, educators are relying heavily on using voice assistants in the classroom environment. Voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Apple Siri, and Microsoft Cortana have transformed the way students interact with their study material. In the higher education environment, universities and colleges are distributing voice assistants to students in place of traditionally printed handbooks or hard-to-navigate websites.
Assisting Educators
AI powered systems are not only helping students with course work, they are also empowering teachers with teaching material and new innovative ways to educationally express themselves. It is easier to explain a theory with the help of picture cues and graphical representation than mere definitions. The Internet has become a treasure trove of teaching material for teachers to borrow from. Also, teachers are burdened with responsibilities “such as essay evaluation, grading of exams…ordering and managing classroom materials, booking and managing field trips, responding to parents, assisting with conversation and second-language related issues…Educators often spend up to 50% of their time on non-teaching tasks.”AI powered systems can help streamline these tasks and handle repetitive and routine work, digitise interaction with parents and guardians and leave educators with more time to teach students.
The fields of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Science cover a vast area of study and they should not be confused with each other. They are distinct branches of computational sciences and technologies.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is an area of computer science wherein the computer systems are built such that they can perform tasks with the same agility as that done through human intelligence. These tasks range from speech recognition to image recognition and decision making systems among others.
This intelligence in computer systems is developed by human beings using technologies like Natural Processing Language (NLP) or computer vision among others. Data forms an important part of AI systems. Big Data, vast stashes of data generated for computer systems to analyze and study to find patterns in is imperative to Artificial Intelligence.
Machine learning
Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence. Machine learning is used to predict future courses of action based on historical data. It is the computer system’s ability to learn from its environment and improve on its findings.
For instance, if you have marked an email as spam once, the computer system will automatically learn to mark as spam all future emails from that particular address. To construct these algorithms developers need large amounts of data. The larger the data sets, the better the predictions. A subset of Machine Learning is Deep Learning, modeled after the neural networks of the human brain.
Data Science:
Data science is a field wherein data scientists derive valuable and actionable insights from large volumes of data. The science is based on tools developed with the knowledge of various subjects like mathematics, computer programming, statistical modeling and machine learning.
The insights derived by data scientists help companies and business organizations grow their business. Data science involves analysis of data and modelling of data among other techniques like data extraction, data exploration, data preparation and data visualization. As data volumes grow more and more vast, the scope of data science is also growing each passing day, data that needs to be analyzed to grow business.
Data Science, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence
Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are all related in that they all rely on data. To process data for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, you need a data scientist to cull out relevant information and process it before feeding it to predictive models used for Machine Learning. Machine Learning is the subset of Artificial Intelligence – which relies on computers understanding data, learning from it and making decisions based on their findings of patterns (virtually impossible for the human eye to detect manually) in data sets. Machine Learning is the link between Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence uses Machine Learning to help Data Science get solutions to specific problems.
Machine Learning, a subset of Artificial Intelligence, has revolutionized the business environment the world over. It has brought actionable insights to business operations and helped increase profits acting as a reliable tool of business operations. In fact, its role in the business environment has become almost indispensable, so much so that machine learning algorithms are needed to maintain competitiveness in the market. Here is a list of machine learning algorithms crucial to businesses.
Supervised Machine Learning Algorithms
Supervised Learning involves those algorithms which involve direct supervision of the operation. In this case, the developer labels sample data corpus and sets strict boundaries upon which the algorithm operates, says a report.
Here human experts act as the tutor or teacher feeding the computer system with input and output data so the computer can learn the patterns.
“Supervised learning algorithms try to model relationships and dependencies between the target prediction output and the input features such that we can predict the output values for new data based on those relationships which it learned from the previous data sets,” says another report.
The most widely used supervised algorithms are Linear Regression; Logistical Regression; Random Forest; Gradient Boosted Trees; Support Vector Machines (SVM); Neural Networks; Decision Trees; Naive Bayes; Nearest Neighbor. Supervised algorithms are used in price prediction and trend forecasting in sales, retail commerce, and stock trading.
Unsupervised Machine Learning Algorithms
Unsupervised Learning is the algorithm which does not involve direct control of the developer or teacher. Unlike in supervised machine learning where the results are known, in the case of unsupervised machine learning algorithms, the desired results are unknown and not yet defined. Another big difference between the two is that supervised learning uses labelled data exclusively, while unsupervised learning feeds on unlabeled data.
The unsupervised machine learning algorithm is used for exploring the structure of the information; extracting valuable insights; detecting patterns; implementing this into its operation to increase efficiency.
Digital marketing and ad tech are the two fields where Unsupervised Learning is used to effectively. Also, this algorithm is often applied to explore customer information and mould the service accordingly.
Semi-supervised Machine Learning Algorithms
Semi-supervised learning algorithms represent features of both supervised and unsupervised algorithms. In essence, the semi-supervised model combines some aspects of both into a unique aspect of itself. Semi-supervised machine learning algorithm uses a limited set of labelled sample data to train itself. The limitation results in a partially trained model that later gets the task to label the unlabeled data. Due to the limitations of the sample data set, the results are considered pseudo-labelled data, says a report. Lastly, labelled and pseudo-labelled data sets are combined with each other to create a distinct algorithm that combines descriptive and predictive aspects of supervised and unsupervised learning.
Semi-supervised learning uses the classification process to identify data assets and clustering process to group it into distinct parts.
Legal and Healthcare industries, among others, manage web content classification, image and speech analysis with the help of semi-supervised learning.
Reinforcement Machine Learning Algorithms
Reinforcement learning represents what is commonly understood as machine learning artificial intelligence.
In essence, reinforcement learning is all about developing a self-sustained system that, throughout contiguous sequences of trials and errors, improves itself based on the combination of labelled data and interactions with the incoming data. The method aims at using observations gathered from the interaction with the environment to take actions that would maximize the reward or minimize the risk.
Most common reinforcement learning algorithms include: Q-Learning; Temporal Difference (TD); Monte-Carlo Tree Search (MCTS); Asynchronous Actor-Critic Agents (A3C).
Modern NPCs and other video games use this type of machine learning model a lot. Reinforcement Learning provides flexibility to the AI reactions to the player’s action thus providing viable challenges. Self-driving cars also rely on reinforced learning algorithms.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are today thought to be one of the biggest innovations since the microchip. With the advancement of the science of neural networks, scientists are making extraordinary breakthroughs in machine learning through what is termed as deep learning. These sciences are making life easier and more streamlined for us in more ways than one. Here are a few examples.
1. Smart Gaming
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are used in smart gaming techniques, especially in games that primarily require the use of mental abilities like chess. Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo learnt to play chess, and defeat champions like Lee Sedol (in 2016) by not only studying the moves of masters but by learning how to play the game by practising against itself innumerable times.
2. Automated Transportation
When we fly in an airplane, we experience automated transportation in the sense that a human pilot is only flying the plane for a couple of minutes during take-off and landing. The rest of the flight is maneuvered by a Flight Management System, a synchronization of GPS, motion sensors and computer systems that track flight position. Google Maps has already revolutionized local transport by studying coordinates from smart phones to determine how fast or slow a vehicle is moving and therefore how much traffic there is on a given road at any point of time.
3. Dangerous Jobs
AI technology powered robots are taking over dangerous jobs like bomb disposal and welding. In bomb disposal, today, robots need to be controlled by humans. But scientists believe there will soon come a time when these tasks would be completed by robots themselves. This technology has already saved hundreds of lives. In the field of welding, a hazardous job which entails working in high levels of noise and heat in a toxic environment, robots are helping weld with greater accuracy.
4. Environmental Protection
Machine Learning and artificial intelligence run on big data, large caches of data and mind boggling statistics generated by computer systems. When put to use in the field of environmental protection, these technologies could be used to extract actionable solutions to untenable problems like environmental degradation. For instance, “IBM’s Green Horizon Project studies and analyzes environmental data from thousands of sensors and sources to produce accurate, evolving weather and pollution forecasts.”
5. Robots as Friends
A company in Japan has invented what it calls a robot companion named Pepper who can understand and feel emotions and empathy. Introduced in 2014, Pepper went on sale in 2015 and all the 1000 units were sold off immediately. “The robot was programmed to read human emotions, develop its own, and help its human friends stay happy,” a report says. Robots could also assist the aged in becoming independent and take care of themselves, says a computer scientist at Washington State University.
6. Health Care
Hospitals across the world are mulling over the adoption of AI and ML to treat patients so there are reduced instances of hospital related accidents and spread of diseases like sepsis. AI’s predictive models are helping in the fight against genetic diseases and heart ailments. Also, Deep Learning models which “quickly provide real-time insights and…are helping healthcare professionals diagnose patients faster and more accurately, develop innovative new drugs and treatments, reduce medical and diagnostic errors, predict adverse reactions, and lower the costs of healthcare for providers and patients.”
7. Digital Media
Machine learning has revolutionized the entertainment industry and technology has already found buyers in streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, and Google Play. “ML algorithms are…making use of the almost endless stream of data about consumers’ viewing habits, helping streaming services offer more useful recommendations.”
These technologies will assist with the production of media too. NLP (Natural Language Processing) algorithms help write and compose trending news stories, thus cutting on production time. Moreover, a new MIT-developed AI model named Shelley “helps users write horror stories through deep learning algorithms and a bank of user-generated fiction.”
8. Home Security and Smart Stores
AI-integrated cameras and alarm systems are taking the home security world by storm. The cutting-edge systems “use facial recognition software and machine learning to build a catalog of your home’s frequent visitors, allowing these systems to detect uninvited guests in an instant.” Brick and Mortar stores are likely to adopt facial recognition for payments by shoppers. Biometric capabilities are largely being adopted to enhance the shopping experience.
A Toronto based AI-startup detected the outbreak of coronavirus, a large family of viruses which infect the respiratory tract of human beings and animals, hours after the first few cases were diagnosed in Wuhan in December 2019.
More than 100,000 people the world over have been infected by the novel coronavirus since then and more than 4000 people have died, most in China.
The start-up team confirmed their findings and informed their clients about an “unusual pneumonia” in a market place in Wuhan a week before Chinese authorities and international health bodies made formal announcements about the virus and the epidemic. The key to the company’s ability to detect and warn of a possible outbreak of an epidemic is AI and big data.
NLP and Machine Learning
The company uses natural language processing or NLP and machine learning to, says a report, “cull data from hundreds of thousands of sources, including statements from official public health organizations, digital media, global airline ticketing data, livestock health reports and population demographics. It’s able to rapidly process tons of information every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day.”
This information becomes the basis of reports compiled by computer programmers and physicians. Also, they do not just detect the outbreak of a disease but also track its spread and the consequences.
In the case of COVID-19, the company besides sending out an alert, correctly identified the cities that were highly connected to Wuhan using data on global airline ticketing “to help anticipate where the infected might be travelling.”
GDP
“Already, the COVID-19 coronavirus is likely to cut global GDP growth by $1.1 trillion this year, in addition to having already wiped around $5 trillion off the value of global stock markets,” a report says.
The vast amount of X-rays and scans people across the world are undergoing in this outbreak of coronavirus has strained medical resources and systems across the world. That is why AI and machine learning models are being trained to read accurately vast amounts of data tirelessly, and efficiently.
Thermal Scanners
China has already deployed AI-powered thermal scanners at railway stations in major cities to read and record, from a distance through infrared, body temperatures of persons passing to detect a fever. This technology has to a large extant reduced stress on institutions across the country.
But it must be noted that AI is set to become a huge firewall against infectious diseases and pandemics not only by powering diagnostic techniques but by identifying potential vaccines and lines of treatment against the next coronavirus and COVID-19 itself within days.
Robots
Also, AI and big data are helping revolutionize the medical management system in China. With the outbreak of the pandemic, China hospitals are using robots to reduce the stresses piled on medical staff. Ambulances in the city of Hangzhou are assisted by AI in navigation to help them reach patients and people suspecting an infection faster.
“Robots have even been dispatched to a public plaza in Guangzhou in order to warn passersby who aren’t wearing face-masks…China is also allegedly using drones to ensure residents are staying at home and reducing the risk of the coronavirus spreading further.”
Python has become one of the leading coding languages across the globe and for more reasons than one. In this article, we evaluate why Python is beneficial in the use of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence applications.
Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning are profoundly shaping the world we live in, with new applications mushrooming by the day. Competent designers are choosing Python as their go-to programming language for designing AI and ML programs.
Artificial Intelligence enables music platforms like Spotify to prescribe melodies to users and streaming platforms like Netflix to understand what shows viewers would like to watch based on their tastes and preferences. The science is widely being used to power organizations with worker efficiency and self-administration.
Machine-driven intelligence ventures are different from traditional programming languages in that they have innovation stack and the ability to accommodate an AI-based experiment. Python has these features and more. It is a steady programming language, it is adaptable and has accessible instruments.
Here are some features of Python that enable AI engineers to build gainful products.
An exemplary library environment
“An extraordinary selection of libraries is one of the primary reasons Python is the most mainstream programming language utilized for AI”, a report says. Python libraries are very extensive in nature and enable designers to perform useful activities without the need to code them from scratch.
Machine Learning demands incessant information preparation, and Python’s libraries allows you to access, deal with and change information. These are libraries can be used for ML and AI: Pandas, Keras, TensorFlow, Matplotlib, NLTK, Scikit-picture, PyBrain, Caffe, Stats models and in the PyPI storehouse, you can find and look at more Python libraries.
Basic and predictable
Python has on offer short and decipherable code. Python’s effortless built allows engineers to make and design robust frameworks. Designers can straightway concentrate on tackling an ML issue rather concentrating on the subtleties of the programming language.
Moreover, Python is easy to learn and therefore being adopted by more and more designers who can easily construct models for AI. Also, many software engineers feel Python is more intuitive than other programming languages.
A low entry barrier
Working in the ML and AI industry means an engineer will have to manage tons of information in a prodigious way. The low section hindrance or low entry barrier allows more information researchers to rapidly understand Python and begin using it for AI advancement without wasting time or energy learning the language.
Moreover, Python programming language is in simple English with a straightforward syntax which makes it very readable and easy to understand.
Conclusion
Thus, we have seen how advantageous Python is as a programming language which can be used to build AI models with ease and agility. It has a broad choice of AI explicit libraries and its basic grammar and readability make the language accessible to non-developers.
This article, the second part of a series, is on the application of artificial intelligence in the field of healthcare. The first part of the series mapped the applications of AI and deep learning in agriculture, with an emphasis on precision farming.
AI has been taking the world by storm and its most crucial application is to the two fields mentioned above. Its application to the field of healthcare is slowly expanding, covering fields of practice such as radiology and oncology.
Stroke Prevention
In a study published in Circulation, a researcher from the British Heart Foundation revealed that his team had trained an artificial intelligence model to read MRI scans and detect compromised blood flow to and from the heart.
And an organisation called the Combio Health Care developed a clinical support system to assist doctors in detecting the risk of strokes in incoming patients.
Brain-Computer Interfaces
Neurological conditions or trauma to the nervous system can adversely affect a patient’s motor sensibilities and his or her ability to meaningfully communicate with his or her environment, including the people around.
AI powered Brain-Computer Interfaces can restore these fundamental experiences. This technology can improve lives drastically for the estimated 5,00,000 people affected by spinal injuries annually the world over and also help out patients affected by ALS, strokes or locked-in syndrome.
Radiology
Radiological imagery obtained from x-rays or CT scanners put radiologists in danger of contracting infection through tissue samples which come in through biopsies. AI is set to assist the next generation of radiologists to completely do away with the need for tissue samples, experts predict.
A report says “(a)rtificial intelligence is helping to enable “virtual biopsies” and advance the innovative field of radiomics, which focuses on harnessing image-based algorithms to characterize the phenotypes and genetic properties of tumors.”
Cancer Treatment
One reason why AI, has made immense advancements in the field of medical oncology is the vast amount of data generated during cancer treatment.
Machine learning algorithms and their ability to study and synthesize highly complex datasets may be able to shed light on new options for targeting therapies to a patient’s unique genetic profile.
Developing countries
Most developing counties suffer from health care systems working on shoe-string budgets with a lack of critical healthcare providers and technicians. AI-powered machines can help plug the deficit of expert professionals.
For example, AI imaging tools can study chest x-rays for signs of diseases like tuberculosis, with an impressive rate of accuracy comparable to human beings. However, algorithm developers must bear in mind the fact that “(t)he course of a disease and population affected by the disease may look very different in India than in the US, for example,” the report says. So an algorithm based on a single ethnic populace might not work for another.
Deep learning is a subset of machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence that configures computers to perform tasks through experience. While classic machine-learning algorithms solved many problems, they are poor at dealing with soft data such as images, video, sound files, and unstructured text.
Deep-learning algorithms solve the same problem using deep neural networks, a type of software architecture inspired by the human brain (though neural networks are different from biological neurons). Neural Networks are inspired by our understanding of the biology of our brains – all those interconnections between the neurons. But, unlike a biological brain where any neuron can connect to any other neuron within a certain physical distance, these artificial neural networks have discrete layers, connections, and directions of data propagation.
The data is inputted into the first layer of the neural network. In the first layer individual neurons pass the data to a second layer. The second layer of neurons does its task, and so on, until the final layer and the final output is produced. Each neuron assigns a weighting to its input — how correct or incorrect it is relative to the task being performed. The final output is then determined by the total of those weightings.
Deep Learning Use Case Examples
Robotics
Many of the recent developments in robotics have been driven by advances in AI and deep learning. Developments in AI mean we can expect the robots of the future to increasingly be used as human assistants. They will not only be used to understand and answer questions, as some are used today. They will also be able to act on voice commands and gestures, even anticipate a worker’s next move. Today, collaborative robots already work alongside humans, with humans and robots each performing separate tasks that are best suited to their strengths.
Agriculture
AI has the potential to revolutionize farming. Today, deep learning enables farmers to deploy equipment that can see and differentiate between crop plants and weeds. This capability allows weeding machines to selectively spray herbicides on weeds and leave other plants untouched. Farming machines that use deep learning–enabled computer vision can even optimize individual plants in a field by selectively spraying herbicides, fertilizers, fungicides and insecticides.
Medical Imaging and Healthcare
Deep learning has been particularly effective in medical imaging, due to the availability of high-quality data and the ability of convolutional neural networks to classify images. Several vendors have already received FDA approval for deep learning algorithms for diagnostic purposes, including image analysis for oncology and retina diseases. Deep learning is also making significant inroads into improving healthcare quality by predicting medical events from electronic health record data. Earlier this year, computer scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) used deep learning to create a new computer program for detecting breast cancer.
Here are some basic techniques that allow deep learning to solve a variety of problems.
Fully Connected Neural Networks
Fully Connected Feed forward Neural Networks are the standard network architecture used in most basic neural network applications.
In a fully connected layer each neuron is connected to every neuron in the previous layer, and each connection has its own weight. This is a totally general purpose connection pattern and makes no assumptions about the features in the data. It’s also very expensive in terms of memory (weights) and computation (connections).
Each neuron in a neural network contains an activation function that changes the output of a neuron given its input. These activation functions are:
Linear function: – it is a straight line that essentially multiplies the input by a constant value.
Sigmoid function: – it is an S-shaped curve ranging from 0 to 1.
Hyperbolic tangent (tanH) function: – it is an S-shaped curve ranging from -1 to +1
Rectified linear unit (ReLU) function: – it is a piecewise function that outputs a 0 if the input is less than a certain value or linear multiple if the input is greater than a certain value.
Each type of activation function has pros and cons, so we use them in various layers in a deep neural network based on the problem. Non-linearity is what allows deep neural networks to model complex functions.
Convolutional Neural Networks
Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) is a type of deep neural network architecture designed for specific tasks like image classification. CNNs were inspired by the organization of neurons in the visual cortex of the animal brain. As a result, they provide some very interesting features that are useful for processing certain types of data like images, audio and video.
Mainly three main types of layers are used to build ConvNet architectures: Convolutional Layer, Pooling Layer, and Fully-Connected Layer (exactly as seen in regular Neural Networks). We will stack these layers to form a full ConvNet architecture. A simple ConvNet for CIFAR-10 classification could have the above architecture [INPUT – CONV – RELU – POOL – FC].
INPUT [32x32x3] will hold the raw pixel values of the image, in this case an image of width 32, height 32, and with three color channels R,G,B.
CONV layer will compute the output of neurons that are connected to local regions in the input, each computing a dot product between their weights and a small region they are connected to in the input volume. This may result in volume such as [32x32x12] if we decided to use 12 filters.
RELU layer will apply an elementwise activation function, such as the max(0,x)max(0,x)thresholding at zero. This leaves the size of the volume unchanged ([32x32x12]).
POOL layer will perform a downsampling operation along the spatial dimensions (width, height), resulting in volume such as [16x16x12].
FC (i.e. fully-connected) layer will compute the class scores, resulting in volume of size [1x1x10], where each of the 10 numbers correspond to a class score, such as among the 10 categories of CIFAR-10. As with ordinary Neural Networks and as the name implies, each neuron in this layer will be connected to all the numbers in the previous volume.
In this way, ConvNets transform the original image layer by layer from the original pixel values to the final class scores. Note that some layers contain parameters and others don’t. In particular, the CONV/FC layers perform transformations that are a function of not only the activations in the input volume, but also of the parameters (the weights and biases of the neurons). On the other hand, the RELU/POOL layers will implement a fixed function. The parameters in the CONV/FC layers will be trained with gradient descent so that the class scores that the ConvNet computes are consistent with the labels in the training set for each image.
Convolution is a technique that allows us to extract visual features from an image in small chunks. Each neuron in a convolution layer is responsible for a small cluster of neurons in the receding layer. CNNs work well for a variety of tasks including image recognition, image processing, image segmentation, video analysis, and natural language processing.
Recurrent Neural Network
The recurrent neural network (RNN), unlike feed forward neural networks, can operate effectively on sequences of data with variable input length.
The idea behind RNNs is to make use of sequential information. In a traditional neural network we assume that all inputs (and outputs) are independent of each other. But for many tasks that is a very bad idea. If you want to predict the next word in a sentence you better know which words came before it. RNNs are called recurrent because they perform the same task for every element of a sequence, with the output being depended on the previous computations. Another way to think about RNNs is that they have a “memory” which captures information about what has been calculated so far. This is essentially like giving a neural network a short-term memory. This feature makes RNNs very effective for working with sequences of data that occur over time, For example, the time-series data, like changes in stock prices, a sequence of characters, like a stream of characters being typed into a mobile phone.
The two variants on the basic RNN architecture that help solve a common problem with training RNNs are Gated RNNs, and Long Short-Term Memory RNNs (LSTMs). Both of these variants use a form of memory to help make predictions in sequences over time. The main difference between a Gated RNN and an LSTM is that the Gated RNN has two gates to control its memory: an Update gate and a Reset gate, while an LSTM has three gates: an Input gate, an Output gate, and a Forget gate.
RNNs work well for applications that involve a sequence of data that change over time. These applications include natural language processing, speech recognition, language translation, image captioning and conversation modeling.
Conclusion
So this article was about various Deep Learning techniques. Each technique is useful in its own way and is put to practical use in various applications daily. Although deep learning is currently the most advanced artificial intelligence technique, it is not the AI industry’s final destination. The evolution of deep learning and neural networks might give us totally new architectures. Which is why more and more institutes are offering courses on AI and Deep Learning across the world and in India as well. One of the best and most competent artificial intelligence certification in Delhi NCR is DexLab Analytics. It offers an array of courses worth exploring.
This article, the first part of a series, is on the application of artificial intelligence in agriculture. Popular applications of AI in agriculture can be sectioned off into three aspects – AI powered robots, computer vision and seasonal forecasting.
Robots
Firstly, companies are now gradually adopting AI powered machines to automate agricultural tasks such as harvesting larger volumes of crops faster than human workers. For instance, companies are using robots to remove weeds and unwanted plants from fields.
Computer Vision
Secondly, companies are using computer vision and deep learning algorithms to process and study crop and soil health. For instance, farmers are using unmanned drones to survey their lands in real time to identify problem areas and areas of potential improvement. Farms can be monitored frequently using these machines than they can be with farmers doing so on foot.
Seasonal Forecasting
Thirdly, AI is used to track and predict environmental impacts such as weather changes. “Seasonal forecasting is particularly valuable for small farms in developing countries as their data and knowledge can be limited. Keeping these small farms operational and growing bountiful yields is important as these small farms produce 70% of the world’s crops,” says a report .
The India story
In India, for instance, farmers are gradually working with technology to predict weather patterns and crop yield. Since 2016, Microsoft and a non-profit have together developed an AI sowing application which is used to guide farmers on when to sow seeds based on a study of weather patterns, local crop yield and rainfall.
In the year 2017, the pilot project was broadened to encompass over 3,000 farmers in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and it was found that those farmers who received the AI-sowing app advisory text messages benefitted wherein they reported 10–30% higher yields per hectare.
Chatbots
Moreover, farmers across the world have begun to turn to chatbots for assistance and help, getting answers to a variety of questions and queries regarding specific farm problems.
Precision Farming
Research predicts the precision agriculture market to touch $12.9 billion by 2027. Precision agriculture or farming, also called site-specific crop management or satellite farming, is a concept of farm management that utilizes information technology to ensure optimum health and productivity of crops.
With this increase in the volume of satellite farming, there is bound to be an increase in the demand for sophisticated data-analysis solutions. One such solution has been developed by the University of Illinois. The system developed aims to “efficiently and accurately process precision agricultural data.”
A professor of the University says, “We developed methodology using deep learning to generate yield predictions…”
Conclusion
The application of artificial intelligence to analyze data from precision agriculture is a nascent development, but it is a growing one. Environment vagaries and factors like food security concerns have forced the agricultural industry to search for innovative solutions to protect and improve crop yield. Consequently, AI is steadily emerging as the game changer in the industry’s technological evolution.
