Why are human beings the dominant species on this planet? What aspects of human behaviour actually separate us from other animals? There are many ways to answer this question but I would argue that the answer is our extensive use of machines. Whether it is simple tools like hammers and spades or complex machines like automobiles and computers, humans are capable of creating machines that greatly reduce human effort and save time. As we move forward into the future, we are continuously innovating and creating new alternatives to manpower, so that human minds are free from repetitive and labour intensive tasks and can focus on creative tasks.
Another step in this direction is the development of AI (Artificial Intelligence). While some may consider AI as a concept from science fiction, the reality is that AI is being used today in a variety of industries. Banks, hospitals, factories have been known to use AI systems to manage their operations. However, these are relatively simple functions, mainly focussed around organising schedules and assigning tasks to team members. Can AI perform complex web designing functions? After all those kind of functions requires a level of creativity.
Up until now the answer to the above question was no. However, that is set to change this year. A San Francisco based initiative called The Grid (www.thegrid.io)has claimed that they have built an Artificial Intelligence that can design a site without the need for human expertise. Even more noteworthy is the fact that being a machine, it will be online and available to its users 24/7 and will be able to constantly upgrade and make changes to the site. All it really needs is the content for the site-text, images, videos etc. Once that is done it will decide that optimal layout for the website, the appropriate text colours, the filters on the images etc and voila! Your website is done. Any subsequent and new content added to the website will again be analysed by the AI and will result in changes to the site design, in order to better accommodate the new content.
The Company is currently running a crowd funding campaign in order to garner funds to begin operations in the summer of 2015. It has a well reputed team with big names formerly associated with online giants like Google and Facebook. For example, the founder of the company is Brian Axe, one of the creators of Google Adsense. Moreover, the service promises to cost effective too, with early adopters being offered services at 8$ per month. It is a revolutionary new concept that has a lot of industry watchers sitting up and taking notice. Only time will tell how effective ‘The Grid’ is but for now it seems like the next generation of artificial intelligence is here.