The Splitblog in March – I spy with my little eye, and what I see is AI
The AI boom continues, and for many people, AI still feels like a brand-new technology that has suddenly sprouted from the ground. This is reason enough for us to shed light on where AI has been accompanying us in our everyday lives (and for a very long time) without us even noticing.
The smartphone camera
While professional shots used to require high-quality equipment and a great deal of expertise, the perfect photo is now often achieved at the touch of a button. Many smartphones are not only equipped with high-quality cameras but have also often featured sophisticated AI technology for over a decade. It recognizes scenes, adjusts the focus, optimizes exposure, and helps turn our casual snapshots into vivid images.
E-commerce
Perhaps a bit more obvious, yet rarely actively perceived: purchase recommendations. Many online shopping providers rely on AI to analyze our preferences, purchasing behavior, and selections. Based on this, further product recommendations are generated to entice us to make additional purchases—and have been for more than 20 years.
Agriculture
AI has also long since found its way into agriculture. Soil conditions and plant growth are precisely analyzed to optimize crop yields and cultivation. It is also used in livestock farming, for example, in calculating the ideal feed quantity and composition.
Video games
Since the late 1990s, AI has become an indispensable part of video games. In particular, the behavior of so-called NPCs (Non-Player Characters) is frequently AI-controlled.
Sports forecasts
Not necessarily relevant to everyday life, but exciting for sports fans: match analyses and forecasts are also frequently created using AI tools. One of the better-known examples here is likely xGoals. For instance, xGoals is capable of calculating the probability of a goal being scored based on player positioning. In a professional soccer match, up to 3.6 million data points can be collected and used for match analysis. AI therefore has a significant impact on match tactics and training, but is also used for recruiting new athletes.
Navigation systems
Navigation systems have long done more than just calculate a route. AI has been used here for some time to incorporate fuel consumption and current traffic data. This allows modern navigation systems to reliably suggest the best route or determine alternatives in real time.
AI is now ubiquitous and has long since arrived in our daily lives. It does no harm to take a look at it within your personal environment. And the next time your robot vacuum cleaner gets stuck in the carpet fringe, you can ask yourself with a wink whether the takeover of the world by AI is really as imminent as some suggest.
