Why Machine Learning Affects Everyday Life

Machine learning goes back to the days of Arthur Samuel and his computer game of checkers. Now, it helps innovate some of the best technologies the world creates daily. Whether supervised or unsupervised learning, machines have gotten much more intelligent and can impact people in many ways. Here are seven reasons why machine learning affects everyday life. 

1. Pandemics

COVID-19 has affected people on all continents, with over 600 million cases worldwide since the beginning of the pandemic. One way scientists have fought the pandemic and will fight future infectious diseases is through machine learning. This technology can take large volumes of medical data, detect patterns, and provide doctors with insights into what is driving the spread of the virus.

Machine learning can detect specific demographics suffering from the virus and where they live. Scientists can use the data to better protect people from contracting the virus based on factors like age, pre-existing conditions and climate.  

One of the most critical reasons machine learning helps during a pandemic is its use in developing vaccines and other solutions for fighting viruses. In the past, researchers have used it when developing drugs to combat Ebola and H7N9. For example, they used machine learning to assist with virtual screening to considerably enhance test scores’ accuracy.

2. Health Care

For health care, AI and machine learning can save time, money and lives for hospitals and medical practices worldwide. AI can make a medical diagnosis faster than a doctor, and the accuracy will be higher because of reduced biases and a large memory of data it can analyze. Machine learning algorithms can also speed up the development of new medicine, as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

AI has also helped doctors predict diagnoses and create personalized care plans for individual patients. Machine learning can process medical data faster than a doctor can, and it excels at finding patterns and giving insight into what could be wrong with the patient. People are unique and need individualized care. AI can remove biases from health care and help patients who experience gender and racial prejudice and want a proper diagnosis.

3. Automated Transportation

Transportation is an industry machine learning has helped substantially, and the future is bright with opportunities for innovation, including:

• Self-driving cars: Fully autonomous vehicles have not arrived yet, but the progress made on automated cars comes from advances. Developers have created cars smart enough to detect nearly anything in their surroundings. These vehicles can see other cars, traffic lights, the environment, pedestrians and road signs.  
• Planes: Artificial intelligence (AI) could help take the next step in aviation: pilotless planes. Pilots can already set planes on autopilot for much of the journey. The primary labor for a pilot comes from takeoff and landing. Planes have gotten more intelligent to the point where they can almost go by themselves.

4. Route Efficiency

Route efficiency is something that affects people in their work lives and their personal lives. Machine learning helps global position systems (GPS) track people while driving on the road. The AI begins to memorize the route if the driver takes the same one frequently and will optimize the course if needed. 

Technology today can tell a driver if there are shorter routes to take that will save them time on the road, thus increasing efficiency. Drivers benefit because they’ll spend less time on the road, saving money on gas and reducing their carbon emissions. When more people use this technology, the environment benefits from sustainable practices.

5. Internet of Things

Machine learning has helped improve the Internet of Things (IoT) technology to be more accurate, faster and more secure. Developers use deep learning, a subset of machine learning, to mimic the human brain when creating algorithms. Researchers have brought deep learning networks to small devices, like IoT gadgets. 

Machine learning has also substantially helped the field of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Manufacturing companies use these intelligent robot machines to communicate with each from every side of a factory floor. These machines can rapidly provide information on output, errors and safety concerns. They’re beneficial for detecting patterns so humans can make processes more efficient and save time and money with fewer machine failures.

6. Banking and Fraud Prevention

Because of machine learning, the world saves time and especially money daily. The rise in mobile banking has opened the possibility of fraud and hacking. Because it specializes in quickly detecting patterns, AI can detect irregularities in banking services and discern what transactions are fraudulent compared to regular ones. 

Like healthcare, AI can remove biases and detect this fraud more accurately than any human can. With a high volume of daily transactions, it’s significantly beneficial for machine learning to process what’s happening and report it immediately.

7. Agriculture

The agricultural industry has been one of the most significant beneficiaries of machine-learning technology. With almost eight billion people on Earth, humans require many food resources to keep up with demand. AI has helped farmers become more efficient and produce more crops while maintaining the soil.
For example, there is a shortage of agricultural workers worldwide, so machine learning-based technology has been able to pick up the slack. This innovative machinery is intelligent enough to distribute fertilizer equally to multiple rows of crops. Drones can monitor a field of crops from above to determine their health levels. Machine-learning AI is also a practical solution for supply chain issues since track-and-trace technology makes shipping much more efficient.

Machine Learning Is Integral to Daily Life

Whether people realize it or not, machine learning has a significant impact on their lives every day. It protects their banks and bank accounts from hackers and thieves. It can help health care and pandemics by rapidly detecting viruses and other health problems to give patients individualized care. These advances have made life easier, and it’s not the last society will see from AI. There is a bright future with automated transportation like self-driving cars and planes.