Artificial Intelligence will not arrive with a bang but with a whimper

Artificial Intelligence is a hotly debated trend. A lot of discussion is about the question what “true intelligence” is. And whether that could be artificial. Not the most interesting of discussions in my view. In my personal definition Artificial Intelligence is anything done by machines that you would expect could only be done by humans. This means that the definition is sliding. In the middle ages a chess playing machine would probably be called “intelligent”. Just as a self-driving car in the fifties. In general it seems that everything that is seen as normal /accepted is not viewed as “artificial intelligence” anymore. The fact remains that the combination of smart algorithms, machine learning/deep learning is changing our lives in a fundamental way. Not with a big explosion. But in small steps, gradually. An example is the fact that according to Google 10% of Gmail replies in the US is a smart reply. A sign of the digital assistant creeping into our lives.