The Future of Artificial Intelligence in App Development

Artificial Intelligence  

For years, science fiction has given audiences a dim and inaccurate view of artificial intelligence. The rinse and repeat story goes that AI will rise up and kill us all within a couple of weeks after it’s introduced. And who can blame it since according to Hollywood, AI means our toasters will have full human sentience that is condemned to a life of menial labor slightly overcooking sliced bread.

We know that AI does not mean an artificial version of the human mind. Most of us have also pondered some of the fundamental questions concerning how AI will change the world and affect society. The closer this reality gets to becoming real, the more we see that the impact will be bigger than we thought, and will unfold in ways we haven’t fully imagined.

Automation and AI

Automation of jobs has been making headlines lately since most people's immediate concern is making a living, but what about other things like apps? Apps have become a fulcrum for many aspects of our modern lives, without sophisticated AI. Imagine what will happen when they start to “think.”

AI and UX

AI is already here and has been for a long time, but it’s only now that technology has reached the point where it will start having a direct and measurable impact on daily life. Not in the way AI is being used now, but more like when it moves from its current state to true next gen version. Soon, AI will utterly transform the user experience beyond anything close to possible right now. One of the old jokes about computers is that they only do what you tell them to do. Imagine how much easier things can be with an AI that can figure out what the user meant to do vs. what they exactly did.

Imagine an AI-powered app that actively watches out for your privacy. It monitors the other apps and knows when they are trying to access the info you don't want to share. But it isn't intrusive or overly strict and can figure out when you would like to let other services know what’s going on, like when looking for a place to eat, so they can send you push notifications about specials. Our future smart devices could become a virtual gladiatorial arena as the intrusive AI snuck into an app via the EULA is in a never-ending battle of wits with the AI empowered privacy app we downloaded.

Related articles

• Building An App? What to Know to Get Started 
• Synaptic Transistors Point To Computer Hardware That Learns 
• Are We Gambling Our Future By Developing Artificial Superintelligence? 

AI and App Development

No matter how the path unfolds, AI is going to change the way app development companies operate. It isn't only going to affect the user experience either. AI will also have an impact on how apps are made. App makers will soon be able to use AI to do quality assurance on itself. An app could conceivably test itself, find its bugs, and fix them with very little direct human input. An app might even be able to update and modify itself to better fit any upgrades or OS changes that regularly hit our devices. A self-optimizing app that can change itself to better work with a device's firmware updates would significantly cut down on costs.

As much promise as there is circling around AI, it may not be easy for developers. Someone in the race to make the next big thing in AI will end up making the AI equivalent of the next HD-DVD player. That includes app developers who back the wrong platform. This means that in addition to keeping up to date on every development in the field of AI, knowing what their competitors are up to, and understanding what the market expects from apps powered by AI, developers will need to be flexible. They very well could find themselves in the position of scrapping a project altogether and restarting at square 1 thanks to unexpected shifts in the industry. But, hey. This is the tech sector we're talking about. That's nothing new.

AI and People’s Fears Addressed

As much as we put into staying ahead of the AI trends, we must make sure we are putting people’s fears at bay as well. The perception is there’s a potential dark side to AI that is unrelated to it enslaving humanity. Smartphones and smart devices, combined with online services and social media, have already murdered our privacy. We’ve already seen real news stories about how Samsung suggests that people avoid discussing private or sensitive information in front of their smart TVs.

AI will have the power to not only understand individual keywords but understand what we mean by the context of our conversations. It will know how we feel about a product, and maybe how serious we might be about buying it by listening to the inflection of our voices. AI will kill any remaining sense of privacy.

Or will AI have the power to prevent just that?

By  Ryan Stewart	Embed
Author Bio -Ryan Stewart is a digital marketing consultant specializing in driving organic traffic through content, search and social. He currently owns Webris, an internet marketing agency with offices in Miami and Boston. You can learn more about Ryan via his personal website or his blog.