10 Real World Problems Effectively Solved by the AI

Published in

Becoming Human: Artificial Intelligence Magazine

7 min readDec 7, 2020

Smart assistants building impressive gadget at our command and terminator machines destroying the world, these are the first pictures that come into our mind when someone mentions the name AI.

In real life, however, AI is more positive and grounded. While AI has not reached the level of assembling gadgets yet, it has made the world a better place by solving many complex problems.

In this blog, we will talk about ten such real-world problems effectively solved by AI. Let’s begin:

1. Online Shopping Made Easy

Shopping online for a product without knowing its name was a nightmare a few years back. It took hours to find that product from the catalog.

However, all thanks to AI trends like predictive technology, things are entirely different these days. When you search for an item even with a vague query, thousands of search results appear in the blink of an eye.

We even get suggestions based on our searches like these search engines can reading our mind. It appears that everything we want is not too far anymore.

Companies like CamFind are even taking this one step further by letting you identify objects by just clicking their picture. We are not far from the day when consumers will be able to shop items just by clicking their picture.

2. Consumer Queries Resolved Faster & More Accurately

The biggest challenge among businesses is to ensure the queries of their consumers are resolved on time. Things become even more tough when you are a big organization with millions of customers.

India’s leading finance bank, HDFC was facing the same difficulty. So, they developed EVA (Electronic Virtual Assistant), an AI-based chatbot which can provide simple answers in less than 0.4 seconds by collected knowledge from thousands of resources.

The virtual assistant has been responsible for addressing 3 million queries, interacting with half a million unique users, and holding over half a million conversations.

So, you can see how much impact can adopting AI in customer support can create.

3. Frauds Prevented

Tracing and preventing frauds have always been a big challenge that AI is helping us overcome. Organizations are using AI solutions to prevent fraud and enhance security in a number of sectors.

Companies like MasterCard and RBSWordPay are using AI and deep learning to recognize doubtful transaction patterns and thwart card frauds. Other industries are using the same approach to prevent such cons from happening. It has helped them save millions of people from getting conned off their hard-earned money.

4. Farmers Producing More Crops with Less Resources

According to stats, we will need to produce 50% more food by the year 2050 because we are consuming a lot. For this, farmers will have to produce crops while using their resources wisely.

Yet the question is how!

Blue River Technology, the subsidiary of American corporation John Deere figured out the solution by creating a robot called See and Spray. The robot uses object detection (a computer vision technology) to monitor and spray weedicide on cotton plants in precise amount.

Not only this, an agriculture startup called PEAT has created an app called Plantix that makes use of image recognition technology to identify potential defects and provide techniques, tips, and solutions.

So, you can realize how these little things can improve the agriculture industry and help us meet the crop requirements.

5. We No Longer Have to Worry about Diseases

What if we can identify and prevent diseases even before they occur? We will live a lot longer.

You might have read this a hundred times till now. Yet the only question you find yourself asking is: “how is that possible?”

The answer is: With the power of AI.

A healthcare organization called Cambio Health Care has developed a clinical decision support system that warns a physician in advance when a patient is at the risk of having a heart stroke so that they can prevent it from happening by taking appropriate measures.

Another company called Coala life also created a digitalized device that can detect Cardiac diseases. Even another company called Aifloo is creating a system that will keep track on patients’ health in nursing homes and healthcare centres.

These examples prove that we are not far from days when we no longer have to worry about finding a cure for new diseases. Instead, we can use existing cures to save more lives.

6. E-learning is Much Interactive & Fun Now

With an expected worth of over $325 billion by the year 2025, e-learning is one of the fastest-growing industries. However, keeping up with its pace is a real challenge.

There are millions of e-learning courses available. How many you think do receive the attention they deserve?

Thankfully, with the help of AI, designing interactive courses is easy these days. With features like learning pathways, personalized tutoring sessions, content analytics, targeted marketing, automatic grading, and real-time questioning — AI is changing the face of e-learning.

No wonder why platforms like Duolingo (30 million registered users) and Massive Open Online Courses (101 million registered users) are getting so popular.

Another interesting example of AI playing a critical role in elearning is an online PM training website I recently found on the internet. It uses AI and behavior science for designing interactive courses of online training.

So, AI is truly reforming the fate of elearning and online education, making it more fun and an interactive experience.

7. Solving Puzzles is No Longer a Challenge

We all love solving puzzles. However, staying stuck for hours while trying to solve them is something we would never want.

For example, I am addicted to Scrabble. However, it used to take a toll me because I could not think of enough words. The most frustrating part was that I used to lose every time I played.

However, with the scrabble word finder I recently found online, losing while playing this game is out of the question because I can easily find the best scoring words.

Not only this, AI is even helping historians solve ancient puzzles to restore and recreate historical artifacts from photos of fragments. Things like this can be a great contribution to mankind.

So, we are no far from days when there will no mystery that AI cannot uncover and no puzzle it can’t solve.

8. We are Learning through Games

Can games teach us something?

For most people, the answer to this question will be “No”.

However, all thanks to AI, this notion is going to change soon. Games are using AI to train players and improve their skills.

The game F.E.A.R (First Encounter Assault Recon) uses AI to train players. The actions of the opponent AI in this game are so unpredictable that it will train you throughout the game to never make the same mistakes. You get better as the game gets harder. No wonder people like it.

Another interesting example is Google DeepMind’s AlphaZero which is taking the game of chess to the next level by defeating grandmasters like Gary Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik. Similar is happening in the case of AlphaGo.

So, all thanks to AI, games are teaching us to expand our limits and improve like we never did before.

9. Fighting Hate Speech and Trolls on Social Media has Become Easy

Fighting hate speech and trolls on social media has been one of the biggest challenges to date. Not only tracking these trolls and hatemongers is difficult, but there is also little you can do about them.

Twitter was facing the same issue. So, it built an AI that can easily identify hate speech and terrorist language with the help of deep learning, machine learning, and natural language processing.

As a result, the social media mogul has banned over 300,000 terrorist accounts. Even Facebook and Instagram have also started using AI to over spammers, hatemongers, and trolls.

So, we are not far from days when fighting hate speech and trolls will not be a challenge anymore.

10. Athletes are Able to Enhance Their Performance

Being a sportsman demands sheer dedication and endless practice. However, sometimes just practicing alone is not enough. You have to combine it with the right strategy.

AI is helping athletes push their limits and accomplishing the impossible by breaking the game into small chunks and then studying it closely with the help of machine learning algorithms.

Not only this, the combination of sensor technology and AI is helping coaches improve players’ techniques. It is also helping them prevent player injuries by keeping a close check on the levels of strain and exertion players are experiencing.

All these little things are helping players achieve impossible milestones and take their performance to whole new level.

In a Nutshell

While the concept of AI might still seem fiction, it is already changing the world. These ten real-world examples are proof. It is helping us achieve what earlier seemed impossible.

The trend will continue to revolutionize our lives in the future. So, if you are a beginner who wants to start a career in AI or a business looking forward to incorporating the trend into your operations, this is the right time.

Are you wondering where to get started? These 5 AI courses for beginners may be the right first step.