By Tatiana Cañas, Media Specialist at Kizuna Tech

 If you ever watched WALL-E, you are familiar with the scene where WALL-E and EVA go to the planet humans now live in. Everything on that new planet is automated and led by robots. Humans are portrayed as lazy beings who spend their lives looking at a screen and expecting robots to do everything for them.

If you think back to the last futuristic movie you watched, were there any robots involved? Yes. Did it scare you or make you question the importance of human skills? If so, you are not the only one. 

As technology advances and some jobs get replaced by artificial intelligence, some people fear that our value as humans will begin to decrease. Many people worry that bots will take over jobs, leaving people unemployed and that human interaction will become rarer. 

This is not entirely true, at least for now. AI has the potential to take over jobs that require repetition and efficiency, for example. This means that people currently holding those kinds of jobs will have the opportunity to focus on more specific, and even more necessary tasks. 

We are at a point in time where technology is extremely beneficial. For example, how would we have gone about the Covid-19 pandemic if it weren’t for technology? Anosmia was defined as one of the initial infection symptoms thanks to an AI-powered computer after sorting through thousands of medical record data.

There are plenty of industries and settings where AI has become positively implemented, but in this article, we have narrowed it down to the top four contexts in which AI is used.

Nutrition and Fitness

Diet trends come and go. One day, a diet is the best, the next day is the worst. The same happens with exercise. We know fitness is important for our health and wellbeing, but we all accommodate several types of exercise to feel good. Bodies are different and we all have unique needs. 

AI has been extremely beneficial when it comes to helping people maintain an active, healthy life. Through devices like smartwatches or even our phones, we can access apps that use AI to suggest the best diets, the best workouts, and the best habits according to our individual needs. 

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many people began exercising and eating well. 72% of Americans are finding it easier to sustain a fitness routine now that they don’t have to go to the gym. This is possible because of AI-powered applications like FitnessAI, for example. 

However, although these are extremely beneficial and effective ways of staying physically healthy, we still can’t take human trainers out of the picture. Human trainers are still important because they can communicate with you more effectively with regards to what works best for you. For example, they can fix your posture during an exercise in real-time. There are AI options that will do that as well, but the interaction is not the same. 

Wellness and Medicine

In the United States, suicide is one of the most common causes of death according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). Antidepressants are the most common prescription drug amongst people aged 18-44. 

Companies are utilizing AI to predict and prevent said events by using smartphones as a tracking device to analyze behavior patterns. This kind of behavior tracking serves as a bridge between the patient and the therapist to detect warning signs. 

Additionally, researchers have investigated the possibility of generating an AI virtual therapist.  Through a microphone and webcam, the virtual therapist would be able to analyze and monitor facial expressions, word use and tone of voice. This is achieved by tapping into neural languages and many other exciting areas of AI that we at Kizuna will be happy to tell you about.

AI is also used in other medical fields to analyze data to lead to a fast and accurate diagnosis. For example, to analyze MRI scans or draw answers from blood pressure data. This works with data gathered and processed through Machine Learning models. It is also used to complete computer work so physicians can focus on critical tasks. 

Health is a complex topic that cannot be solved solely through AI. Therapists and physicians are still extremely needed and cannot be dismissed. However, artificial intelligence has a lot of beneficial ways to help detect any warning signs and help connect people to the right specialists. 

Customer Service

It is likely that we all remember specific experiences where we needed to contact customer service at a company and ended up waiting hours for an answer. Luckily, those wait-times will get shorter as more companies start implementing AI virtual assistants.

The benefits of virtual assistants are that they can be implemented in a lot of ways. You will have access to them when you call a company, or you will be able to access them through common third-party platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook. 

Virtual Assistants are designed to respond in a human-like manner and have conversations as neutral or as friendly as a person would. Virtual assistants also can understand when a question would be better answered by a human and has the option to transfer you to one. 

Customer Service is a field where AI might replace humans to carry on monotonous tasks such as answering frequently asked questions or guiding customers through troubleshooting processes. Customer service agents will, then, have more time to focus on offering a more efficient service. 

Everyday Life

If you have ever used Siri, Cortana, Alexa, Google Assistant, or any other form of smart speaker, then you have used an AI-powered tool. 

If you have used them, then you agree that they are extremely useful in everyday life. Whether you use them to ask random questions or get them to perform specific tasks for you like playing a specific call or placing a call, all these tools make our lives easier in many ways. 

Will these technologies stop us from placing calls or playing music ourselves? No. They will just be helpful whenever we are in a situation where we can’t do it, or when we need to trust in something to do it more accurately.

What to Expect?

Because technology advances so quickly, it is hard to make long-term predictions accurately. However, we know that machines are playing a more central role in our lives.