What is AI Anyways? (And How It Could Save Your Life)
July 2, 2019
The term “AI” (artificial intelligence) is very common in today’s world. You may have heard it used in movies (like Terminator and AI), in the media, and in casual conversations. And you may even be scared of it based on what some people say.
However, many people really don’t know what it is (and why it’s not scary like in the movies), much less why they should care about it.
AI is now used in everything from steering self-driving cars, to suggesting where you should eat, to auto-correcting your grammar when you type. AI is everywhere! And far from being a terrifying supercomputer that will inevitably take over the world as some science fiction movies suggest, AI is a 21st century tool designed to help make our lives easier.
But what is AI really?
AI is software that helps humans think faster
There really isn’t a better name for artificial intelligence than “AI” because that’s exactly what it is — an artificial “brain”, a software application that learns patterns so well that it gets good at predicting similar patterns.
When a human brain learns a pattern, it stores a memory of it in case the pattern will be useful in the future. For example, when a young child first recognizes that it gets dark every night, they begin to expect darkness every night, which helps the body establish healthy patterns of rest. When a person first learns basic math like 2 + 2 = 4, the ability to count useful information is developed (with obvious applications we all use in daily life).
As wonderfully amazing as human brains are though, they can only process so much information. For example, it would take a human days-to-years to sort through millions of statistics to figure out significant patterns of how well experimental medicines are working for patients, but AI can do it in a matter of seconds.
AI does what we do as humans every day, only much, much faster and more intelligently by recognizing learned patterns and suggesting actions to take as a result.
Odds are that you already use AI every day and may not even know it. If you’ve ever typed a person’s uniquely-spelled name into your phone before, your phone probably now suggests the spelling of that name every time you type it in. Your phone’s AI software learned your friend’s name, and now it intelligently suggests the name when it suspects you’re likely to use it, helping you type faster and auto-correcting accidental typos.
So AI is pretty cool and useful. But, why should you care? Because it not only helps you run your life more efficiently, it can also help save your life.
Seriously — AI could save your life
AI is now being used to auto-pilot airplanes, maneuver self-driving cars, and even predict and automatically deter dangerous hacker threats.
All of that is awesome. But what we’re most excited about is how AI is now able to analyze surveillance video to automatically detect guns, masks, and intruders AND then immediately lock doors to keep active shooters out of houses of worship, schools, and businesses before they get to the front door.
With the horrifically tragic rise in active shooter incidents in recent years, many businesses, houses of worship, and schools are thinking every day about how to best defend themselves in case an active shooter incident were to occur.
With AI hard at work 24/7, security cameras can now be transformed from passive recording solutions for forensic recording (often, no one is actually watching them 24/7, if at all; they’re just good to watch back what already happened) into intelligently automated emergency response tools.
Check out the product that’s paving the way for churches, schools, and businesses to be protected by a 24/7 AI active shooter defense system:
With AI, you too can prevent an active shooting
What better way to end an active shooter incident than to prevent it before it even starts?
The reality is that an active shooting could happen anywhere at anytime. And in today’s world, the threat of active shooters is sadly growing more each year. So you should prepare.
Defendry is the leading active shooter prevention solution because it was built specifically for threat detection scenarios by US Department of Defense DARPADefense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the U.S. military. veteran, Dr. Sean Huver, and serial tech entrepreneur, Pat Sullivan. And Defendry is optimized for performance in virtually any environment so you can rest assured that your house of worship, school, or business is best-equipped to deter a detected active shooter.
Want to learn more about how you can protect your people with Defendry?
