The world has got smarter with technology. Artificial intelligence and Automation are the top mantras. Both the terms have proven to be revolutionary and have shaped up the future. But how similar or dissimilar are these terms ? While both the technologies are the front face of the future, both have their likeness and differences. Let’s venture into further details.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the technology where the machine is designed to mimic the tasks performed by humans more efficiently with or without human intervention. This has empowered the machines to self educate from the data and inputs provided by humans and act on it. This is also known as Machine Learning; a subset of Artificial Intelligence. AI is a relatively newer concept which is exceptionally engaging. One of the commonest examples of AI are Androids, Robots and Chatbots which are turning around the businesses worldwide. One of the finest achievements in AI is Sophia- the social humanoid robot which was activated on February 14, 2016.
Automation
On the other hand, Automation is a program designed to perform repetitive and redundant tasks independently; eliminating human interference. Automation is automating tasks for us everywhere and everyday.However, the concept of Automation isn’t new, it has been a dominant trend that coincides with the implementation of gadgets in industries as early as 1980.
An excellent example of Automation is the SMS (Short Messaging Service).
AI vs Automation – How are they different?
Let’s dig into some specific aspect that separates AI from Automation.
1.Usage: Automation is used for performing repetitive tasks based on commands given by humans. Artificial Intelligence is the evolution of self-learning machines to help experts analyse a situation and come to a certain conclusion. AI is not designed for routine jobs.
2.Setup: Automation is pre-set to perform tasks unlike Artificial Intelligence. AI learns from its past experience and makes decisions independently after analyzing the current situation and then works accordingly.
3.Jobs: While Automation has eliminated jobs in numerous sectors across the globe, Artificial Intelligence has created more than 2.3 million job opportunities till the year 2020. Hence, we can refer to AI as more pro-human compared to Automation.
4.Human Interaction : Automation requires minimal human interaction as it works on a pre-decided set of software rules. On the other side, Artificial Intelligence involves human interaction as it grasps information based on real life experiences and evolves on it.
How is AI similar to Automation?
Now, let’s highlight the likeness among these technologies. As already mentioned, both of them are highly promising and ensure to affect us in every possible way. Both of them need human assistance, maybe in varying proportions.No matter how much we claim that automation requires zero human interference , at the end of the day it is the human brain that is required to fix glitches and debug the codes in the system for a smoother functioning
The driving force behind both these technologies is also same-Data. Both AI and Automation compliment each other. Presently, we are in a stage where we have seen the best of Automation but the paramount of AI is yet to be achieved. To conclude, we can say that we are at the very evolving stage of cognitive automation, which we hope will help humanity to touch greater technical heights.
Author- Toshank Bhardwaj, AI Content Creator
