The Spectrum of Artificial Intelligence – An Infographic Tool

UPDATED August 3, 2021 and June 2023. FPF released the white paper, The Spectrum of AI: Companion to the FPF AI Infographic, to provide additional detail and analysis for use of this Infographic tool as an educational resources for policymakers or regulators.

FPF has just completed its newest infographic educational tool, The Spectrum of Artificial Intelligence.

AI is the computerized ability to perform tasks commonly associated with human intelligence, including reasoning, discovering patterns and meaning, generalizing knowledge across spheres of application, and learning from experience. The growth of AI-based systems in recent years has garnered much attention, particularly in the sphere of Machine Learning (ML). A subset of AI, ML systems “learn” from the success or accuracy of their outputs, and can adapt their programming over time, with minimal human intervention. But there are other types of AI that, alone or in combination, lie behind many of the real-world applications in common use.

General AI – truly human-level computational systems – does not yet exist. But Narrow AI exists in many fields and applications where computerized systems enhance human output or outperform humans at defined tasks. This chart is designed to identify and explain the main types of AI, their relationship to each other, and provide some specific examples of how they are currently in place throughout our day-to-day lives. It also demonstrates how AI exists within the timeline of human knowledge and development. Building on knowledge from philosophy, mathematics, physics, ethics, and logic, and more recently, statistical analytics and modeling, it also reflects the foundational role of computer design and security.

There is not 100 percent consensus around the labels for the various types of AI, but for our purposes, we have adopted the following categories as representing generally accepted terms in common use.

• Symbolic AI, including subsets: Expert Systems, Search, and Planning & Scheduling
• Rules Based
• Robotics
• Computer Sensing
• Knowledge Engineering
• Natural Language Processing, and of course,
• Machine Learning, including Deep Learning, Neural Networks, Reinforcement Learning, and General Adversarial Networks (GANs)

To aid in understanding these various types of AI programming, we have highlighted a specific use case in a number of broad topic areas.

• Finance – Tax Compliance programs that allow you to fill out your tax forms and ensure your information included and provided in a way that is within current legal requirements of the tax code.
• Healthcare – Ambient Charting, where conversations between doctors and patients are recorded and added to the patient record as they happen, with key words and followups noted as appropriate.
• Tracking – as used in Workplace Monitoring to provide both physical and digital accountability, while enforcing security policies.
• Mobility and Transportation – Turn-by-Turn Navigation provides real-time guidance through traffic or even when an area is under construction.
• Social Media – platforms use AI to face the challenges around appropriate and effective Speech or Content Moderation.
• Forecasting – Supply Chain Management has reached new levels of efficiency and accuracy with AI-based modeling and predictions.

For further information or to provide comments or suggestions, please contact Brenda Leong ([email protected]) or Dr. Sara Jordan ([email protected]).