Chapter 10. Evolving intelligence
This chapter covers
- Understanding artificial intelligence
- Working with agents
- Evolving the complexity of agents
We’ve covered a lot of territory in our exploration of machine learning, but before we wrap up, we’re going to expand our perspective just a bit more to consider the exciting world of artificial intelligence. To do that, we’ll have to shrink down and explore one of the most complex societies in all of tech: bees who use instant messaging.
The bees at Buzz Me have built one of the hottest apps in the insect world. They have literally trillions of users, all of whom spend a large portion of their working day coordinating with their hive mates via instant messaging. Although instant messaging has been around for millennia (in bee years), Buzz Me has recently taken over the market with a slick design that makes chatting about work as fun as setting up a night out with friends (figure 10.1).
As part of their expansion plans, the team at Buzz Me is developing a platform for bots (or agents). These bots will interact with their users in real time, taking on all sorts of simple, tedious, repetitive tasks (figure 10.2). Their plan for how to build these bots involves a sophisticated system that goes a bit beyond machine learning into the wider territory of artificial intelligence.
