What Is Human-Centered AI?

Artificial intelligence is a popular topic these days, but as we learn more about AI and how it impacts us, it becomes evident that we need a change. Human-centered AI is the new focus. Rather than replacing humans with artificial intelligence, human-centered AI focuses on enhancing human performance through machine learning.

Everyone is familiar with the movies where artificial intelligence goes wrong. While that’s not a concern at this point, there is a lean toward new AI methods. Over time, people have realized just how powerful AI is when it comes to enhancing and improving human interactions and developments. We can be far more efficient and useful if we add AI to our toolbox.

Where AI Fails

We’ve already seen some disasters that autonomous AI caused. For example, self-driving cars are meant to make informed decisions that will keep the occupants of the vehicles safe. However, there have been some crashes that have resulted in deaths using self-driving cars. This is just one example of how AI can go very wrong. Others include the Boeing 737 MAX crashes, market flash crashes, and others. There are more than a few kinks to work out.

AI isn’t entirely independent, of course. To “make decisions,” it needs to be fed information first, and then it can only work within specific parameters. This means that the slightest human error will be multiplied by the machine, and it can be difficult to catch it when you leave the machine to work things out on its own. Remember that computers can’t reason, so they can only form conclusions from the information they have.

Many people assume that AI doesn’t have any bias, so it can be useful for inputting information and keeping it unbiased. However, it turns out that there is something called a feedback loop where bias is not only in existence; it’s also repeated and amplified with each progressive loop. The original bias comes from people who have put the base data into the machine. It then takes this bias and repeats and expands on them.

Bias has been seen with AI when coming to facial recognition. Some AI systems prefer men over women, or they may find it more challenging to identify or separate ethnic minorities. This may occur because there were more white faces in the original data programmed into the system. As you can imagine, this is imported by the original users.

Social media has made these issues more prevalent and noticeable to the public eye. For example, Twitter discovered that their photo-cutting algorithm tended to crop out men and black people. Facebook tends to push advertisements at specific genders, which can also be a big issue.

How Human-Centered AI Is Used

human-centered AI is meant to be used as an enhancement to our everyday lives. There are many ways to integrate it into our lives, but here are some top methods.

Chatbots: Social networks, websites, and many other places now use chatbots or AI robots. These have the information you need, but they respond in a personalized method, rather than coming across as a simple FAQ. This immediately gives a more tailored experience that feels special, even simply responding to your questions.

Ads: Human-centric ads can be targeted using AI to use language that their audience uses. Two-way messaging in digital ads makes this an even more specific option, and you can interact with these ads to ensure you get exactly what you want.

Disability Aid: AI is beneficial for those with disabilities. AI assistance can be tailored to the user’s abilities. Whether they need finger movements or gaze detection, it opens up a whole new world to kids. Anyone who has limited movement, for example, can benefit from voice-activated options, and you’ll also find other types of AI to be useful.

Call Centers: A call center can be a labyrinth of transfers and dead ends, but with smart call centers, AI quickly and efficiently sorts people and sends them to the agent they need to talk to. This automation helps immensely with saving time and energy on both ends.

Learning Platforms: Now, online learning and computer learning are the norms, and AI can help with this. If you need someone to bounce ideas off of or if you need to practice a language, spelling, etc., with someone else, AI can step in and provide input and turn it into a custom learning platform.

Healthcare: AI is also used to help check science and determine which drugs are most likely to help specific diseases. These checks eliminate some of the work that scientists have to do and let them focus on making those drugs into something helpful.

Government: The government can benefit from AI integration to help reduce the amounts of outdated policies and processes. It also prompts workers to make better decisions by presenting various options with the reasoning behind them.

As you can see, human-centred AI is available in nearly every industry. It leaves a mark just about everywhere and can speed up otherwise dull and drawn-out processes.

Is There Room for Autonomous AI?

When you start to look into the options for human-centered AI, it may seem like we don’t need autonomous AI. However, there are some definite needs for it still. The trick is to ensure that the information and data that is input is as unbiased as possible. It’s impossible to get things as entirely unbiased as we’d like, but you can certainly make an effort.

Auto AI will always be useful in many areas, but there’s something special about having artificial intelligence help you perform better. In the end, it’s best to have a little of each option.