What is IA? How does it differ from AI? - Get to know the new trend that enhances businesses

No more worries that AI will replace humans because we got IA, a new form of AI that makes humans better!

Over the past few decades, there has been a continuous development of new technologies, especially many forms of AI that can perform various human tasks. One of them is IA, an intelligence augmentation. Although the abbreviation is very similar to AI, IA is actually another conceptualization of AI with a different focus from the other AI.

We normally have this perception of AI as the technology that takes over human jobs, and it raises the fear that AI will one day replace us, wipe out human workers, and dominate the world.

However, in reality, most developers still see the limitations of AI’s intelligence. It still can’t imitate human intelligence of critical thinking and empathy, causing AI’s ability to be limited and can’t ultimately replace humans. Acknowledging and understanding this limitation drove the development of new IA technologies that shifted the focus from taking over our tasks to assisting and encouraging humans to use our intellect more efficiently and elevate businesses and operations in ways that humans remain at the center.

In this article, we’d like to introduce everyone to IA. Let’s get to know what it is, how it is beneficial to businesses, and how it can be adapted.

What is an IA?

IA, which stands for Intelligence Augmentation, is a conceptualization of AI technology that focuses on an assistive role and aims to enhance human intelligence. The word ‘augmentation’ means ‘enhancement’ or ‘increase’. To summarize, IA is a type of AI that helps augment human intelligence without the intent of replacing us. It is truly a collaboration between technologies and human beings.

You may also hear IA referred to as Amplification, Assistive Intelligence, Machine Augmented Intelligence, or Cognitive Augmentation. IA offers tools and technologies that help improve humans’ decision-making and functions. For example, natural language processing tools such as Siri which is a personal voice assistant to humans, image processing tools that help analyze medical images to assist doctors with making diagnostic and medical decisions, the tools to develop knowledge bases, etc.

How is IA different from AI?

To put it simply, IA is a type of AI. The main difference is when we think of AI, we think of machine intelligence that imitates humans to take over our tasks and is programmed to simulate human thinking in the way that we claim as a unique human intellect. IA is also a technology in this category, but it is the kind that assists us in some tasks and aims to be our assistant who will help us better our cognitive functions and make better decisions. IA is developed without being expected to replace or acquire complete human intelligence, while the AI that we are familiar with focuses on doing all the work for us and completely cutting human workers out of the process.

While AI places technologies at the heart of the process, IA places humans at the center and uses technologies only as complements. This allows IA to overcome some of the limitations that still exist in AI.

IA Applications

The applications of IA in business operations we often see mainly focus on data-related works. We can use IA to collect, organize, and clean big data, analyze it to draw real-time insights, and spot and present interesting trends or results. We can enhance the data analytics process by utilizing NLP technology to present data in a more verbally natural and easily understandable way. These technologies provide the insights and leave the final decision to us.

IA enables us to work smarter with innovations in hand. At the same time, we still have human critical thinking and empathy that are essential in this fast-pacing world. In a world where a huge amount of data is generated every day, we can’t just rely on AI because it doesn’t have the same level of analytical intelligence as we do. On the other hand, relying on humans alone is too slow to catch up with these rapid changes. This makes IA a technology that tackles all the pains in this situation.

In addition to data, IA is applied in a variety of industries such as:

• The technologies that take over routine or repetitive tasks that don’t require much cognitive skill to free up humans for other more important tasks
• AR glasses that aid surgeons or oil workers
• Autonomous driving on controlled situations such as highways but human control is still needed in more difficult conditions.
• Industrial robots that handle unsafe tasks for humans
• Drones that inspect transmission towers or other dangerous areas for humans

It can be seen that IA plays a vital role in developing many solutions across a variety of industries, whether it is in medical, commercial, telecommunications, manufacturing, transportation industries, and many others. All IA applications have the same goal to enhance humans’ abilities to think, empathize, and strategize to maximum efficiency.

Because nowadays, the ability of AI has not yet reached the level that can replace human intelligence and probably won’t be able to. Highlighting the role of technology in supporting and enhancing our intellect and ability is the best solution for now.

This is a demonstration of how humans join forces with technologies in ways that complement each other. No more worries that AI will replace humans. We found a way to use technology to better human life and work, create sustainable benefits, and enhance humanity.

Start with Sertis to implement technologies into your businesses. We provide customized solutions for businesses across all industries. Leverage the power of technologies to create solutions that drive your business forward.

Learn more about solutions from Sertis at: https://www.sertiscorp.com/

Written by: Sertis

Originally published at https://www.sertiscorp.com/