Future of Privacy Forum - The Spectrum of Artificial Intelligence

The Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) is a catalyst for privacy leadership and scholarship, advancing responsible data practices in support of emerging technologies. FPF is based in Washington, DC, and includes an advisory board comprising leading figures from industry, academia, law, and advocacy groups.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the computerized ability to perform tasks commonly associated with human intelligence, including reasoning, discovering patterns and meaning, generalizing, applying knowledge across spheres of application, and learning from experience. The growth of AI-based systems in recent years has garnered much attention, particularly in the sphere of Machine Learning. A subset of AI, Machine Learning (ML) systems “learn” from the success or accuracy of their outputs, and can change their processing over time, with minimal human intervention. But there are non-ML types of AI that, alone or in combination, lie behind the real-world applications in common use. General AI — a human-level computational system — does not yet exist. But Narrow AI exists in many fields and applications where computerized systems greatly enhance human output or outperform humans at defined tasks. This chart explains the main types of AI, their relationships to each other, and provides specific examples of how they are currently appear in our day-to-day lives. It also demonstrates how AI exists within the timeline of human knowledge and development.