What is AI?
In this episode, hosts Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham, together with Senior Cloud Engineer Nick Commisso, break down the basics of artificial intelligence (AI). They discuss the differences between Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI), and explore the concepts of machine learning, deep learning, and generative AI. Nick also shares examples of how AI is used in everyday life, from navigation apps to spam filters, and explains how AI can help businesses cut costs and boost revenue. AI for You: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/ai-for-you/152601/252500 Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/ X: https://x.com/Oracle_Edu Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, Kris-Ann Nansen, Radhika Banka, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode. ----------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00:00 Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we’ll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let’s get started! 00:25 Nikita: Hello and welcome to the Oracle University Podcast. I’m Nikita Abraham, Team Lead of Editorial Services with Oracle University, and with me is Lois Houston, Director of Innovation Programs. Lois: Hi everyone! Welcome to a new season of the podcast. I’m so excited about this one because we’re going to dive into the world of artificial intelligence, speaking to many experts in the field. Nikita: If you've been listening to us for a while, you probably know we’ve covered AI from a bunch of different angles. But this time, we’re dialing it all the way back to basics. We wanted to create something for the absolute beginner, so no jargon, no assumptions, just simple conversations that anyone can follow. 01:08 Lois: That’s right, Niki. You don’t need to have a technical background or prior experience with AI to get the most out of these episodes. In our upcoming conversations, we’ll break down the basics of AI, explore how it's shaping the world around us, and understand its impact on your business. Nikita: The idea is to give you a practical understanding of AI that you can use in your work, especially if you’re in sales, marketing, operations, HR, or even customer service. 01:37 Lois: Today, we’ll talk about the basics of AI with Senior Cloud Engineer Nick Commisso. Hi Nick! Welcome back to the podcast. Can you tell us about human intelligence and how it relates to artificial intelligence? And within AI, I know we have Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI, and Artificial Narrow Intelligence, or ANI. What’s the difference between the two? Nick: Human intelligence is the intellectual capability of humans that allow us to learn new skills through observation and mental digestion, to think through and understand abstract concepts and apply reasoning, to communicate using language and understand non-verbal cues, such as facial expressions, tone variation, body language. We can handle objections and situations in real time, even in a complex setting. We can plan for short and long-term situations or projects. And we can create music, art, or invent something new or have original ideas. If machines can replicate a wide range of human cognitive abilities, such as learning, reasoning, or problem solving, we call it artificial general intelligence. Now, AGI is hypothetical for now, but when we apply AI to solve problems with specific, narrow objectives, we call it artificial narrow intelligence, or ANI. AGI is a hypothetical AI that thinks like a human. It represents the ultimate goal of artificial intelligence, which is a system capable of chatting, learning, and even arguing like us. If AGI existed, it would take the form like a robot doctor that accurately diagnoses and comforts patients, or an AI teacher that customizes lessons in real time based on each student's mood, pace, and learning style, or an AI therapist that comprehends complex emotions and provides empathetic, personalized support. ANI, on the other hand, focuses on doing one thing really well. It's designed to perform specific tasks by recognizing patterns and following rules, but it doesn't truly understand or think beyond its narrow scope. Think of ANI as a specialist. Your phone's face ID can recognize you instantly, but it can't carry on a conversation. Google Maps finds the best route, but it can't write you a poem. And spam filters catch junk mail, but it can't make you coffee. So, most of the AI you interact with today is ANI. It's smart, efficient, and practical, but limited to specific functions without general reasoning or creativity. 04:22 Nikita: Ok then what about Generative AI? Nick: Generative AI is a type of AI that can produce content such as audio, text, code, video, and images. ChatGPT can write essays, but it can't fact check itself. DALL-E creates art, but it doesn't actually know if it's good. Or AI song covers can create deepfakes like Drake singing "Baby Shark." 04:47 Lois: Why should I care about AI? Why is it important? Nick: AI is already part of your everyday life, often working quietly in the background. ANI powers things like navigation apps, voice assistants, and spam filters. Generative AI helps create everything from custom playlists to smart writing tools. And while AGI isn't here yet, it's shaping ideas about what the future might look like. Now, AI is not just a buzzword, it's a tool that's changing how we live, work, and interact with the world. So, whether you're using it or learning about it or just curious, it's worth knowing what's behind the tech that's becoming part of everyday life. 05:32 Lois: Nick, whenever people talk about AI, they also throw around terms like machine learning and deep learning. What are they and how do they relate to AI? Nick: As we shared earlier, AI is the ability of machines to imitate human intelligence. And Machine Learning, or ML, is a subset of AI where the algorithms are used to learn from past data and predict outcomes on new data or to identify trends from the past. Deep Learning, or DL, is a subset of machine learning that uses neural networks to learn patterns from complex data and make predictions or classifications. And Generative AI, or GenAI, on the other hand, is a specific application of DL focused on creating new content, such as text, images, and audio, by learning the underlying structure of the training data. 06:24 Nikita: AI is often associated with key domains like language, speech, and vision, right? So, could you walk us through some of the specific tasks or applications within each of these areas? Nick: Language-related AI tasks can be text related or generative AI. Text-related AI tasks use text as input, and the output can vary depending on the task. Some examples include detecting language, extracting entities in a text, extracting key phrases, and so on. 06:54 Lois: Ok, I get you. That’s like translating text, where you can use a text translation tool, type your text in the box, choose your source and target language, and then click Translate. That would be an example of a text-related AI task. What about generative AI language tasks? Nick: These are generative, which means the output text is generated by the model. Some examples are creating text, like stories or poems, summarizing texts, and answering questions, and so on. 07:25 Nikita: What about speech and vision? Nick: Speech-related AI tasks can be audio related or generative AI. Speech-related AI tasks use audio or speech as input, and the output can vary depending on the task. For example, speech to text conversion, speaker recognition, or voice conversion, and so on. Generative AI tasks are generative, i.e., the output audio is generated by the model (for example, music composition or speech synthesis). Vision-related AI tasks can be image related or generative AI. Image-related AI tasks use an image as the input, and the output depends on the task. Some examples are classifying images or identifying objects in an image. Facial recognition is one of the most popular image-related tasks that's often used for surveillance and tracking people in real time. It's used in a lot of different fields, like security and biometrics, law enforcement, entertainment, and social media. For generative AI tasks, the output image is generated by the model. For example, creating an image from a textual description or generating images of specific style or high resolution, and so on. It can create extremely realistic new images and videos by generating original 3D models of objects, such as machine, buildings, medications, people and landscapes, and so much more. 08:58 Lois: This is so fascinating. So, now we know what AI is capable of. But Nick, what is AI good at? Nick: AI frees you to focus on creativity and more challenging parts of your work. Now, AI isn't magic. It's just very good at certain tasks. It handles work that's repetitive, time consuming, or too complex for humans, like processing data or spotting patterns in large data sets. AI can take over routine tasks that are essential but monotonous. Examples include entering data into spreadsheets, processing invoices, or even scheduling meetings, freeing up time for more meaningful work. AI can support professionals by extending their abilities. Now, this includes tools like AI-assisted coding for developers, real-time language translation for travelers or global teams, and advanced image analysis to help doctors interpret medical scans much more accurately. 10:00 Nikita: And what would you say is AI's sweet spot? Nick: That would be tasks that are both doable and valuable. A few examples of tasks that are feasible technically and have business value are things like predicting equipment failure. This saves downtime and the loss of business. Call center automation, like the routing of calls to the right person. This saves time and improves customer satisfaction. Document summarization and review. This helps save time for busy professionals. Or inspecting power lines. Now, this task is dangerous. By automating it, it protects human life and saves time. 10:48 Oracle University’s Race to Certification 2025 is your ticket to free training and certification in today’s hottest tech. Whether you’re starting with Artificial Intelligence, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Multicloud, or Oracle Data Platform, this challenge covers it all! Learn more about your chance to win prizes and see your name on the Leaderboard by visiting education.oracle.com/race-to-certification-2025. That’s education.oracle.com/race-to-certification-2025. 11:30 Nikita: Welcome back! Now one big way AI is helping businesses today is by cutting costs, right? Can you give us some examples of this? Nick: Now, AI can contribute to cost reduction in several key areas. For instance, chatbots are capable of managing up to 50% of customer queries. This significantly reduces the need for manual support, thereby lowering operational costs. AI can streamline workflows, for example, reducing invoice processing time from 10 days to just 1 hour. This leads to substantial savings in both time and resources. In addition to cost savings, AI can also support revenue growth. One way is enabling personalization and upselling. Platforms like Netflix use AI-driven recommendation systems to influence user choices. This not only enhances the user experience, but it also increases the engagement and the subscription revenue. Or unlocking new revenue streams. AI technologies, such as generative video tools and virtual influencers, are creating entirely new avenues for advertising and branded content, expanding business opportunities in emerging markets. 12:50 Lois: Wow, saving money and boosting bottom lines. That’s a real win! But Nick, how is AI able to do this? Nick: Now, data is what teaches AI. Just like we learn from experience, so does AI. It learns from good examples, bad examples, and sometimes even the absence of examples. The quality and variety of data shape how smart, accurate, and useful AI becomes. Imagine teaching a kid to recognize animals using only pictures of squirrels that are labeled dogs. That would be very confusing at the dog park. AI works the exact same way, where bad data leads to bad decisions. With the right data, AI can be powerful and accurate. But with poor or biased data, it can become unreliable and even misleading. AI amplifies whatever you feed it. So, give it gourmet data, not data junk food. AI is like a chef. It needs the right ingredients. It needs numbers for predictions, like will this product sell? It needs images for cool tricks like detecting tumors, and text for chatting, or generating excuses for why you'd be late. Variety keeps AI from being a one-trick pony. Examples of the types of data are numbers, or machine learning, for predicting things like the weather. Text or generative AI, where chatbots are used for writing emails or bad poetry. Images, or deep learning, can be used for identifying defective parts in an assembly line, or an audio data type to transcribe a dictation from a doctor to a text. 14:35 Lois: With so much data available, things can get pretty confusing, which is why we have the concept of labeled and unlabeled data. Can you help us understand what that is? Nick: Labeled data are like flashcards, where everything has an answer. Spam filters learned from emails that are already marked as junk, and X-rays are marked either normal or pneumonia. Let's say we're training AI to tell cats from dogs, and we show it a hundred labeled pictures. Cat, dog, cat, dog, etc. Over time, it learns, hmm fluffy and pointy ears? That's probably a cat. And then we test it with new pictures to verify. Unlabeled data is like a mystery box, where AI has to figure it out itself. Social media posts, or product reviews, have no labels. So, AI clusters them by similarity. AI finding trends in unlabeled data is like a kid sorting through LEGOs without instructions. No one tells them which blocks will go together. 15:36 Nikita: With all the data that’s being used to train AI, I’m sure there are issues that can crop up too. What are some common problems, Nick? Nick: AI's performance depends heavily on the quality of its data. Poor or biased data leads to unreliable and unfair outcomes. Dirty data includes errors like typos, missing values, or duplicates. For example, an age record as 250, or NA, can confuse the AI. And a variety of data cleaning techniques are available, like missing data can be filled in, or duplicates can be removed. AI can inherit human prejudices if the data is unbalanced. For example, a hiring AI may favor one gender if the past three hires were mostly male. Ensuring diverse and representative data helps promote fairness. Good data is required to train better AI. Data could be messy, and needs to be processed before to train AI. 16:39 Nikita: Thank you, Nick, for sharing your expertise with us. To learn more about AI, go to mylearn.oracle.com and search for the AI for You course. As you complete the course, you’ll find skill checks that you can attempt to solidify your learning. Lois: In our next episode, we’ll dive deep into fundamental AI concepts and terminologies. Until then, this is Lois Houston… Nikita: And Nikita Abraham signing off! 17:05 That’s all for this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please click Subscribe to get all the latest episodes. We’d also love it if you would take a moment to rate and review us on your podcast app. See you again on the next episode of the Oracle University Podcast.
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