📌 12 Real World Examples of AI

✅ Some you are not even aware you are using!

Nov 05, 2024

Summary: This week’s newsletter explores several ways AI is already being used in our daily lives. From the US elections and disaster recovery to personal finance and even the art on your walls, AI is coming!

I recently described the rise of AI as a silent revolution. The robots are seeping into the foundation of our workplaces and homes like water rising through the floorboards. We are not even aware of how AI and automation are invading our lives.

So, I thought I’d do some research and see just some of the latest ways AI is already being used to provide solutions to the problems in our lives.

US Elections

The Problem: I am not going to make any predictions about this year’s Presidential election, but we have all seen countless polls try to do just that. Complex national polls done by reputable companies can cost hundreds of thousands for a single poll. It’s a huge expense for campaigns that use them to gauge progress and where to spend their advertising dollars.

The Solution: Three teens have launched a startup, Aaru, to use AI for polls instead. “The team uses census and demographic data to create AI avatars of voters, each with hundreds of personality traits. These avatars are then fed with news and information and polled on their voting preferences.”

Your Taxes

The Problem: Tax fraud is a massive problem, and online payment systems only muddy the waters further. The IRS estimates that “online payment fraud may break $362 billion by 2028.”

The Solution: AI will be auditing your taxes. The Treasury recently “emphasized its commitment and noted plans to equip other federal agencies with AI tools, data, and expertise to combat improper payments and fraud.”

Your Finances

The Problem: If, like me, you are old enough to remember home economics class, where you learned to write a check and balance your checkbook by hand, then you have probably *not yet* discovered the many AI tools that can do this for you faster and far better.

The Solution: My 28-year-old son recently introduced me to Rocket Money, an AI app that tracks your spending, recaps your habits, predicts and reports your upcoming expenses, and even cancels subscriptions for you. My son is not the only one using this. According to the article below, 67% of polled Gen Zers and 62% of surveyed millennials are using artificial intelligence to help with their personal finances. Nice!

Home Decor

The Problem: Okay, I am an artist, so this bothers me, but for the average consumer who just wants pretty pictures in their home, this probably won’t matter because original artwork, even reproductions, can be pricey.

The Solution: For those who want an iconic poster or painting, AI has already been trained on the body of human-produced artwork and photographs, so reproducing a similar image is easy for the robots. Check out this article on reproducing famous images with DALL-E and Midjourney.

So, just how good is AI when analyzing and reproducing artwork? In one recent study, AI analyzed Van Gogh’s painting, and now it can tell you just how many brush strokes a masterpiece took to create. Exact matches of the masterpieces will be coming.

Reading Handwriting

The Problem: Reading handwritten notes and cursive. This is a problem, especially for the younger generation that has grown up as keyboard natives. Some children are not even taught cursive in the classroom anymore.

The Solution: The InkSight system transforms photos of handwritten words into digital text by leveraging AI.

Your Healthcare

The Problem: Human error, human research, and the human brain. We are mere humans, after all! Doctors, pharmacists, and nurses all make mistakes and misdiagnoses on occasion. Research is tedious and takes years. Our brains often only see one piece of the pie when it comes to healthcare and medicine. Add in the number of cogs needed to make our healthcare system work, and it is a slow, mammoth beast where costs add up.

The Solution: AI infused into every area of healthcare: diagnostics, drug discovery, personalized medicine and genomics, remote patient monitoring, predictive Analytics and risk mitigation, administrative tasks, clinical decisions, etc.

Speaking a Foreign Language

The Problem: you are traveling and cannot speak the language. Learning to speak a new language will take months, if not longer. My swim coach hubby recently traveled to Cali, Columbia, for the South American Games, and fortunately, one of his swimmer’s parents acted as a Spanish-to-English translator for him.

The Solution: Earbuds that automatically translate for you. As a Trekkie, I always remember the Universal Translator, and it looks like it might become a reality!

Hurricane Recovery

The Problem: Natural disasters create such a large-scale problem for leaders that it is difficult to proceed, from forecasting storms to deciding which evacuation routes to recommend.

The Solution: AI management of disaster recovery. “AI could help policymakers identify the best places to put traffic sensors to detect road blockages after tropical storms in Tallahassee, Fla. And in October, meteorologists used AI weather forecasting models to accurately predict that Hurricane Milton would land near Siesta Key, Florida. AI is also being used to alert members of the public more efficiently.”

Your TV Habits

The Problem: Remembering what happened last season on your favorite show. (Okay, it is a first-world problem, but it is still a good example of how AI is quietly creeping into our lives.)

The Solution: Prime Video is launching X-Ray. “X-Ray Recaps is a generative AI-powered feature that creates brief, easy-to-digest summaries of full seasons of TV shows, single episodes, and even pieces of episodes, all personalized down to the exact minute of where you are watching.”

Raising Your Child

The Problem: Your child has ventured onto social media and has lied about their age to access some areas of the internet you may not want them to.

The Solution: Instagram has created the new “Teen Accounts” to help keep their social media safer for younger consumers. So, what’s to keep your kid from lying about their age? Instagram’s new AI is. “The software can sift through a user’s profile, see their follower list and what content they interact with, and will even scan unsuspecting “happy birthday” posts made by friends to predict a user’s age.”

Our National Defense

The Problem: There are many dangers to our nation, ranging from financial, cyber, corporate, and domestic and foreign terrorist threats. Wrangling all the potential attacks into a manageable watch system is a big task for our Homeland Security.

The Solution: AI can easily do things like “streamline complicated logistics and planning, track terrorist financing, or strengthen our cyber defenses.” Meta will now allow US government agencies and contractors to use its open-source Llama AI model for “national security applications.”

Read more: Meta AI is ready for war

Marketing We Consume

The Problem: Costly photo and video production with models, photographers, sets, production assistants, etc.

The Solution: AI models and image and video creation. Companies are beginning to switch to AI-only models in their upcoming campaigns. According to tech expert Roberto Nickson, while artists and models hate it, the consumer doesn't seem to care, and most importantly, the C-level loves the economics. “Mango CEO Toni Ruiz told Bloomberg, in a move that allows it to speed up content creation and compete more effectively with fast-fashion juggernauts like Zara and H&M.”

AI is Popping Up Everywhere

The above examples are just a tiny taste of the number of AI uses popping up across our society. Every facet is being transformed, even if we are not aware of it.

Of course, the next reasonable question is, what will happen to the human workforce once cheaper, more efficient AI replaces a good majority of humans? This is what I will explore in next week’s newsletter. What could our world look like? What should we be doing now to prepare? Big questions that we as a society will have to address together.

Disclosure: No AI was used to write this week’s newsletter. Please excuse the human typos!

We’re in This Together!

No matter what the election results turn out to be, friends, we are in this together! I’ve been using this newsletter to share my business experience and explore what’s next for humans in a world where robots can do all of our jobs quicker, cheaper, and, most likely, better.

Let’s make sense of today’s business world so you can focus on being the most efficient you!

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