Computers today can do a lot more than people think about. A lot of what we data scientists and intelligent system experts do relates to automation in some aspect. Let me talk about how I see intelligent systems.

The first time I introduced automation using programming to a few of my friends was when I asked them the question – What if you know that the cup of coffee you like everyday at 9 A.M. after spending an hour in your chair is hot, with little cream and two spoonful of sugar ? Also, it takes you about 7 seconds to get from your chair to the coffee mug. Some (these are simple normal people living normal lives) might say this is a very good observation, and yes, it is a very good observation gathered through months of knowing oneself and realizing that this is how it is. This is the output of a simple Data Science technique, some people might term as Pattern Recognition, which was gathered here by observing your life choices and is sometimes also gathered using various machine learning algorithms. Some others (I like to call these people nerds) take this as the opportunity to automate the simple process of sending a “make coffee” from their desk everyday at 8.59.53 AM which they then collect at 9.00.00 AM. And even others (let us call them geniuses for now) might just run a simple program for the computer to figure out their daily needs and provide them the right thing at the right time, including their coffee at 9.00.00 AM.

The normal people above are unaware of anything related to intelligence (artificial one). The nerds find the patterns and use them for their good, whenever needed. So, if some day the nerd was not at his desk at around 9.00.00 AM he/she was not getting coffee the regular way. But when he does come back, he has an option to control when he wants his coffee (could be a she too, no gender bias). Now what the genius is running is an intelligent system. The intelligent system has to figure out when and where he needs his coffee. It is possible that the system finds the nearest break room to prepare his coffee and alerts him of his need. Which of these three would you like to be ? I’d like to tell you that the nerd above was using data science while the genius developed an intelligent system using Data Science as well as some automation by coding over it.

Ever heard of Alexa ? or the Echo dot ? Ever noticed a simple google search evolve as you click on the links you find interesting ? Ever heard of a IBM Watson bot winning the Jeopardy game ? Ever used Grammarly to help you with writing blog posts (wait, why am I writing this?) or essays to correct your spelling and grammatical mistakes ? Ever talked to or flirted with (what am I writing?) Siri or Cortana ? Ever drove a Tesla (still waiting for that day myself) ? Ever got bored by a customer service bot ? Ever got awesome movie and shows recommendations on Netflix ? Ever used a smartphone ? Ever … I think I’ve given you a lot more than just to figure out what I am talking about, let’s see who can list out other cooler intelligent systems people here don’t yet know about !