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Mike Barlow
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Table of Contents
v
Practical Artificial Intelligence
in the Cloud
When the automobile was introduced, there were rumors that driv
ers and passengers would suffocate when the speed of their vehicles
exceeded 20 miles per hour. Many people believed that cars would
never become popular because the noise of passing engines fright
ened horses and other farm animals.
Nobody foresaw rush-hour traffic jams, bumper stickers, or acci
dents caused by people trying to text and drive at the same time.
Its hard to imagine AI (artificial intelligence) spooking farm ani
mals. But that hasnt stopped several generations of science-fiction
writers from inventing scary stories about the rise of sentient com
puters and killer robots.
We cant see the future, and its impossible to predict with any rea
sonable degree of accuracy how AI will change our lives. But we can
make some educated guesses. For instance, it seems clear that AI as
a global phenomenon is growing rapidly, and that a large piece of
that growth is enabled by the cloud.
As a society, were no longer debating whether AI is feasible or prac
tical. Instead, were asking where, when, and how AI can be used to
solve problems, achieve higher levels of efficiency, apply knowledge
more effectively, and improve the human condition.
What is increasingly apparent is that the sizes of the applications
and datasets required for genuine AI processes are too large for
devices such as smart phones or laptops. The idea of AI running
1
independently on local machines evokes images of early factories
that generated their own electrical power.
To be fair, its likely that small devices will eventually have enough
processing power and data storage capacity to run AI programs off
the grid, but that day is still far in the future. For the meantime,
well need the cloud to take advantage of AIs potential as a tool for
progress.
1. Speech to Text
2. Text to Speech
3. Natural Language Classifier
4. Dialog
5. Visual Recognition
For developers, poker-playing robots are just the tip of the AI ice
berg. Josh Patterson, director of field engineering at Skymind, an
open-source, enterprise deep-learning provider, foresees the emer
gence of a whole new galaxy of sophisticated cloud-based AI tools,
Its only a matter of time before the expertise and knowledge gained
from developing smart bots and virtual customer assistants can be
transferred into physical robots that interact directly with humans.
Last year, Xiaoi launched a smart robot cloud operating system that