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12 The Authority | October 2024 AI is C hanging H ow W e W ork By Susan Sampson, Communications Manager, Lehigh County Authority A rtificial Intelligence (AI) still seems quite new in many respects, but the fact of the matter is, it is not. AI was publicly introduced in 1956 during the Dartmouth Conference, organized by John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Nathanial Rochester, and Claude Shannon, a group of cognitive and computer scientists. McCarthy assembled the like-minded researchers to explore ways machines are capable of intelligent behavior and proposed the term “artificial intelligence.” The Dartmouth Conference is widely regarded as the birthplace of AI as a field of study to explore the concept of creating machines that could simulate human intelligence. Defined as the data science application of computer systems, AI involves systems and processes trained on the use of data and information to perform tasks. AI has evolved a lot since then, and new ways to use it are introduced daily. For example, this article was researched and developed in part using ChatGPT, an AI chatbot introduced in late 2022. A chatbot is a software application that can simulate human conversation using voice or text interactions to perform tasks. ChatGPT, a product of a company called OpenAI, uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to analyze text and spoken words to provide results and information. It is trained to listen and interpret prompts from a human and then sifts through resources and data to find results. And it is fast. From the 1960s to the 1980s, AI was developed for the analysis of chemicals and used to guide decision- making for diagnoses in medicine. In the 1970s, AI-driven chatbots and automated phone response systems were introduced in the world of customer service. Many of us were being exposed to AI then without truly understanding what it was. Many households today use AI with personal assistant devices, also known as smart speakers, such as Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant, Amazon’s Alexa, or another brand. A smart speaker can help manage calendars, answer questions, keep track of your grocery list, remind you to take medication, and so much LCA takes a “trust, but verify” approach to AI, meaning there is trust in the capability of the technology, but humans must verify the accuracy of information and how it is used and applied to our work product. Continued on page 54. AI T erms Algorithm: A set of rules or a step-by-step procedure designed to perform a specific task or solve a problem. Used to process data, learn patterns, make decisions, and adapt to new information. Chatbot: A software application designed to simulate human conversation through text or voice interactions. Generative Pretrained Transformer (GPT): GPT is a language model trained on vast amounts of text data from the internet to understand and generate responses in a human- like, conversational manner. Machine Learning (ML): A subset of AI that involves training algorithms on data to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed. Examples include face recognition and self- driving cars. Natural Language Processing (NLP): A field of AI focused on enabling machines to understand, interpret, and generate human language.