Introduction to

Artificial
Intelligence
A Beginner’s Guide
Table of
Contents
Introduction 01

The Rising Popularity Of Artificial Intelligence 02

The Basics Of Ai 03

Ai Terms To Know About 07

Building A Career In Ai 08

Get Started Today 10

INTRODUCTION
A decade ago, the term AI-adjacent fields such as computer
“Artificial Intelligence” would make science, math, and statistics.
most people think of futuristic,
sci-fi machines or sentient, Undoubtedly, this is an excellent time
self-aware robots. for career aspirants and opportunists
to upskill in the technologies that
Artificial intelligence is today one drive the future of tech. Your first
of the most sought-after areas in step in that direction is to understand
business and industries across the the field of AI and the basics of it.
world. As the amount the data Simplilearn’s Artificial Intelligence
created continues to rise globally, guide for beginners walks you
AI forms the crux of the ongoing through the current AI landscape,
digital transformation happening in provides the key fundamentals of
all aspects of our professional and AI, and offers practical guidelines on
personal lives. why and how you can be a part of the
AI revolution.
Once a mostly research-oriented
field, AI has come out of the lab
and is fuelling real-life applications,
life in more ways than one. From
aiding self-driving cars, transforming
healthcare, and predicting legal
outcomes to providing media and
shopping suggestions, improving
the video gaming experience, and
advancing space exploration, AI is
playing a more significant and
more diverse role in our lives than
ever before.

With more and more companies

getting on the AI bandwagon,
they are facing an increased need
to acquire skilled talent who can
help them capitalize on these
technologies. This is opening up new
career paths, not just in AI, but also in

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THE RISING
POPULARITY
OF ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE
One of the main reasons for Plus, the infrastructure speed,
AI’s tremendous growth is the availability, and sheer scale has
abundance of data. While nearly made it easier to crunch complex
90 percent of the world’s data has algorithms to solve more ambitious
been created in the last decade. problems at a fraction of the cost.
According to IDC’s predictions, one
hundred seventy-five zettabytes On top of everything, there’s a
(175 trillion gigabytes) of new data broader awareness of AI among the
will be generated around the world general population today, thanks
by 2025. to the natural language-powered
virtual assistants such as Siri and
Because AI thrives on data, it Alexa. These factors taken together
has led to more intense research have boosted the popularity as well
into how the technology can be as the career viability of Artificial
harnessed to process, analyze, and Intelligence in recent times.
act upon such large swaths of data.
Peaked interest in this field had led
to breakthroughs and advances
that are showing their potential to
generate tremendous change.

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THE BASICS
OF AI
In this section, we’ll talk about what is AI,
different levels of AI, its applications, and its
future.

What is AI?
The term ‘Artificial Intelligence’ was coined in
the 1950s when scientists started to explore
the capabilities of computers to solve problems
on their own. The concept of AI may have
changed over time. However, at its core, AI has
always been about building machines capable
of thinking like humans and having the ability to
perform cognitive functions such as observing,
learning, reasoning, and solving problems.

There are three broad levels of AI, namely:

General AI: An artificial intelligence that can

perform cognitive tasks with the same level of
accuracy as a human brain is said to be
General AI.

Narrow AI: This refers to applications where the

machine can perform a specific task better than
a human. Most of the current research in AI is
happening in this area.

Strong AI: This level of AI enables machines to

outperform the human brain in many tasks.

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Types of Artificial Intelligence

1. Purely Reactive 3. Theory of Mind

These machines cannot form These machines are closer to the

“memories”, hence they don’t human brain in the way they can
have any past experiences or interpret human emotions and have
data to work with. They specialize a cognitive understanding based
in performing just one specific on the environment, facial features,
task. For example, programmable etc. Though this type of AI has not
appliances that perform practically arrived yet, there’s a lot
specific tasks such as automatic of research taking place around it.
coffeemakers or washing
machines fall under this category.

2. Limited Memory 4. Self-Aware

These machines keep collecting This is the class of super-intelligent
data they encounter and add it to and self-aware machines that drive
their memory. They rely on past the future of AI and are seen as
experiences when performing a the next-gen of technology. They
function; however, they can only will be able to imitate many human
use these experiences to make a reactions and will likely use internal
decision but can’t form new ideas models to simulate their actions.
based on them. Hence they are
“limited” in the way they utilize
their memory. Some examples
of this include self-driving cars,
Netflix recommendations, and
restaurant suggestions.

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AI Implementations
Artificial intelligence can be implemented in the form of:

Deep learning Machine learning

Deep learning is a sub-field of Machine learning is the subset of AI

machine learning, and quite similar that deals with the algorithms that
to it, except that deep learning uses learn from examples and previous
numerous layers of algorithms called experiences. It involves identifying
an artificial neural network. It mimics patterns in data and utilizing them for
the brain’s neural network, which future predictions.
also has a layered architecture. Deep
learning involves using these layers to
look for patterns in the data. Google’s
LeNet model for image recognition
is a deep learning application that
counts 22 layers of the network.

The Applications of AI
With AI currently being used in almost every industry, its applications today
are wide-ranging. While it’s not surprising that AI is actively being leveraged
in business sectors such as healthcare, medicine, and robotics, there are also
industries entirely unrelated for AI and computer science that are taking
advantage of its innovations. According to McKinsey, AI is slated to create 600
billions of dollars of value in retail. It has the potential to drive a 50% more
incremental value in banking than other analytics techniques. The potential
revenue jump for the transport and logistic sector is 89%.

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The industries where AI is currently being implemented include (but is not
limited to):

Healthcare Cybersecurity

Manufacturing Marketing

Banking Education

Construction Human resources

Ecommerce Transport

Considering that AI fuels a constellation of mainstream technologies that are

having a substantial impact on everyday lives, AI’s application area is only
going to grow further.

The Future of AI
Given the pace of adoption and popularity of AI, it is headed towards a future
where:

Automated transportation will become more common.

There will be an increased prevalence of smart cities where vehicles, phones,

and home appliances will be run by AI.

Human augmentation, where robots — as tech billionaire and Tesla head, Elon
Musk puts it — would “be able to do everything better than us…”

Robots will perform jobs that are potentially dangerous to humans, such
as defusing bombs, lifting heavy objects, working in high-risk factories, or
handling hazardous substances, etc.

As the AI revolution continues to gather steam, we’ll witness disruptive

innovations that will test the boundaries of our imagination.

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AI TERMS TO KNOW
ABOUT
In this section, we’ll briefly introduce you to some basic AI terms that you’ll
encounter frequently while delving into this subject.

Heuristic Search Techniques – This Tensorflow - TensorFlow is a free

is a problem-solving method that and open-source collection of
narrows down the search to optimal software tools developed by Google.
solutions by eliminating inaccurate It finds the most use in differentiable
options, hence increasing the speed programming, and data flow across a
and precision of the process. range of tasks.

Black Box - When an AI system Forward chaining - This is a condition

offers useful outputs, yet users don’t where an AI system needs to move
clearly understand its decisions and “forward” from a problem to come up
operations, it is referred to as Black with a solution. The AI uses a rule-
Box AI. based system to determine which “if”
rules it would apply to the problem.
Explainable AI (XAI) - As the
name suggests, this term refers Backward chaining - This is a
to AI applications and models situation where an AI system works
whose purpose, rationale, and backward from the desired output
decision-making process is easily to analyze and determine data or
comprehensible to an average evidence to support those outputs.
person.
Inductive reasoning - Inductive
Robotic process automation (RPA) reasoning is an AI concept that uses
- It is an automation technique proof and data to create statements
that uses AI and ML capabilities to and rules.
perform mundane, repetitive tasks
once completed by humans. Turing Test – This test was created
by computer scientist Alan Turing
Natural Language Processing (NLP) to check the machines’ ability to
- Natural language processing is exhibit intelligence equal to or
the subfield of AI that’s focused on indistinguishable from that of a
the interactions between human human
language and computers.

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BUILDING A CAREER
IN AI
Today, AI is one of the fastest-growing skills in the world and a job area with
high demand and equally high salaries. According to the World Economic
Forum (WEF), AI is the fastest-growing skill on LinkedIn.

A career in AI can be accomplished in a wide range of settings — from private

companies, public organizations, government agencies to healthcare units,
startups, and even the military — now that all types of organizations are trying
to capitalize on AI-related technologies. Some of the most popular AI job roles
include:

Data scientists

Data engineers

Machine learning engineers

Cybersecurity experts

Systems architects

UI/UX designers

Cloud computing specialists

If you’re exploring career options in this emerging field or looking to upgrade

your skills, and advance your career to the next level, below are the top skills
you’ll want to arm yourself with.

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Computer programming skills - Employers look for computer science or
mathematics degree with working knowledge of modern programming
languages like Python, Java, SQL, Scala, and Perl when hiring for roles such as
machine learning engineer, data scientist, and data engineer.

Software skills - These are skills most machine learning engineers are expected
to possess. These professionals should have an understanding of software
development methodology, agile practices, and must be well-versed with the
full range of modern software development tools right from IDEs like Visual
Studio, Eclipse, and IntelliJ to the elements of a continuous integration pipeline.

Data skills - Aspiring data engineers and data scientists should have in-depth
knowledge of data mining, data warehouse design, and various BI technologies.
At the same time, they must be familiar with data platforms and tools, including
Hadoop, Pig, Hive, Spark, and MapReduce. Being able to work on cloud tools
like Amazon’s S3, and the ability to understand unstructured data are also
prized skills.

Besides these skills, excellent communication and analytical skills, and

certifications in AI technologies and data science are needed to propel you into
a career in this thriving field.

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GET STARTED TODAY
AI has touched practically every industry, and an increasing number of
organizations are joining the race to employ AI-related skills in some form or
other. This has led to the fast and furious pace of demand for AI talent across
the world, and if you want to take advantage of this scenario and up your
skills, now is the time. But what if you don’t the time or the luxury to become a
full-time student? Simplilearn’s e-learning courses are designed especially for
learners like you.

Our range of expert-conducted courses are extremely detailed and will help
you master every AI-related concept and framework effectively, at your own
pace, while you can still be a part of the workforce. Apart from learning the
fundamental concepts, you will also get the opportunity to apply your skills to
solve real-world problems through industry-oriented projects. Get started with
one of our AI courses today and give your career an exciting new turn!

AI courses we offer:

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence Course

Machine Learning Certification Course

Artificial Intelligence Engineer Master’s Program (in collaboration with IBM)

Simplilearn’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Capstone Project

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