Gil Brodsky, Director of Software Engineering | Web, Mobile, Azure, DevOps, Agile, Architecture, AI at Goeasy
Gil Brodsky, Director of Software Engineering | Web, Mobile, Azure, DevOps, Agile, Architecture, AI at Goeasy
Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most exciting and transformative technologies of our time. It has the potential to improve many aspects of our lives, from healthcare to education, entertainment to business. But what exactly is artificial intelligence? How does it work? More importantly, how can we use it to benefit ourselves and society?
Artificial intelligence is the science and engineering of creating machines and systems that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as understanding language, recognizing images, solving problems, and learning from data. Artificial intelligence can be divided into two categories: narrow artificial intelligence and general artificial intelligence. Narrow AI focuses on a specific task or domain, such as playing chess, driving a car, or diagnosing disease. General artificial intelligence is the ultimate goal of artificial intelligence research, which is to create machines that can perform any intellectual task that humans can accomplish.
Artificial intelligence is not about replacing humans, but about augmenting our capabilities and helping us achieve our goals. Artificial intelligence may eliminate some jobs, especially those that are simple and repetitive, but it will also create many new ones. For example, AI can help us design better products, optimize processes, enhance customer service and discover new insights. Artificial intelligence can also allow us to do things that were previously impossible or too expensive, such as exploring space, treating disease, or creating art.
History tells us that technological innovation often creates more opportunities than it destroys. When computers became mainstream in the 20th century, people worried that they would take over our work and lives. But computers have not replaced us. Instead, they have improved our productivity and efficiency and created new industries and markets, such as software development, e-commerce, and social media. Computers create more jobs, both directly and indirectly, than they eliminate.
Artificial intelligence is a powerful technology that can make the world a better place. But we have a responsibility to use it wisely and responsibly. ” 
Likewise, robotics has changed the way we work and live. Robotics automates many repetitive and dangerous tasks, such as manufacturing, mining, and agriculture. But robotics also creates new jobs for engineers, programmers, technicians and operators who design, build, maintain and control robots. Robotics also allow us to explore new territories, such as the ocean floor, the polar regions and other planets.
Another example of recent technological innovation is cloud computing. Cloud computing has moved the way we store and access data and applications from local servers to remote servers on the Internet. This reduces the need for some infrastructure-related work, such as hardware installation and maintenance. But cloud computing also creates new job opportunities for cloud engineers, developers, architects and administrators who design, develop, deploy and manage cloud-based services and solutions.
Based on these historical examples, we can be confident that AI will follow a similar trajectory, eliminating some jobs but creating many more new ones. Artificial intelligence will also create new industries and markets that we cannot imagine today. Artificial intelligence will also provide us with better tools, insights and assistance to improve the productivity and quality of existing work.
Of course, artificial intelligence is not a magical solution to all our problems. Artificial intelligence also brings some challenges and risks, such as ethical, social, legal and economic issues. Therefore, we need to be aware of the potential impact of artificial intelligence and use it responsibly and wisely.
One way to use artificial intelligence responsibly and wisely is to harness its power to help us achieve our goals and aspirations. For example, my development team recently started using GitHub Copilot, an AI-powered coding assistant that helps us write code faster and better. GitHub Copilot uses OpenAI Codex, a deep learning system trained on billions of lines of public code. GitHub Copilot can suggest code snippets for a variety of programming languages and frameworks based on our context and intent.
After trying GitHub Copilot for a month, we found that it saved us a lot of coding time. It also helps us improve code quality by suggesting best practices, error handling, and documentation. But GitHub Copilot isn’t perfect. Sometimes it makes mistakes or gives irrelevant advice. Therefore, we still need to carefully review the code before accepting or rejecting the suggestion.
Another example of how we use artificial intelligence to achieve our goals is Microsoft Power Virtual Agents (now Copilot Studio), a platform that allows us to create chatbots that meet internal and external needs. Microsoft Power Virtual Agents allows us to build chatbots without writing any code (no coding) using a graphical interface that guides us through the process.
We tried using Microsoft Power Virtual Agents to build chatbots for various purposes, such as answering FAQs and providing support. We can also train chatbots using our own data, making them more relevant and accurate. As an alternative to implementing site-wide search capabilities, we can leverage Microsoft PVA to crawl our pages (this PVA feature is called generative AI). This allows us to deliver a chatbot experience where visitors can ask questions and receive answers in human-like language, all referencing relevant pages on our website or internal repository.
These are just a few examples of how we use artificial intelligence to help us achieve our goals. We can use artificial intelligence to improve our lives and create new opportunities in more ways. The key is finding the right tools and platforms that fit our needs and preferences.
Artificial intelligence is a powerful technology that can make the world a better place. But we have a responsibility to use it wisely and responsibly. By doing so, we can unleash the power of artificial intelligence and unlock its full potential.
