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Strong artificial intelligence (AI) can do anything a human can, while weak AI is limited to a specific task. Here's everything you need to know about strong AI vs. weak AI, including how they relate, how they differ, as well as the advantages and limitations of each.

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Weak AI

Performs one specific task.

Programmed for a certain purpose.

Learns how to perform tasks faster.

No self-awareness.

Strong AI

Performs any task a human can.

Learns how to perform brand new skills.

Uses creativity to solve problems.

Potentially sentient.

All AI uses machine learning to constantly improve as it takes in new information. The major difference between weak and strong AI is that weak AI is programmed to perform a single task. The task could be very complex, like driving a car, or as simple as recommending movies to watch. All real-world examples of AI fall under the category of weak AI.

Although AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing AI are very advanced, they are still considered examples of weak AI because they perform only one job (responding to written text prompts). Virtual assistants like Alexa also fall under the umbrella of weak AI since they only respond to voice commands.

Strong AI, also called artificial general intelligence (AGI), possesses the full range of human capabilities, including talking, reasoning, and emoting. So far, strong AI examples exist in sci-fi movies like A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, WALL-E, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Advantages

Faster and more efficient than humans.

Capable of reasoning in limited situations.

Can improve human life in many ways.

Disadvantages

Can't learn new skills own its own.

Requires human oversight.

Could replace many human jobs.

Weak AI may be capable of human-level reasoning to some extent, such as considering an ethical problem, but it doesn't possess the full range of human intellect. Nonetheless, weak AI can perform specific tasks faster and more accurately than humans.

Weak AI has many applications, including fraud detection, financial planning, transportation, image enhancement, medicine, and scientific research. Robotics use weak AI to recognize and manipulate objects, while services like Netflix use weak AI to recommend movies based on your tastes. Gmail and other email providers use AI to detect and filter spam.

Because weak AI can't learn new skills independently, it can't continuously adapt to change, so human oversight is always needed to some degree. For example, if there were a sudden change to traffic laws, self-driving cars wouldn't know about it unless a human updated the AI's algorithm.

There is understandable anxiety about weak AI taking jobs from humans, leading to increased unemployment and economic uncertainty. There's also concern about bias in AI and governments using AI for surveillance.

Whereas weak AI is constrained in the type of tasks it can perform, strong AI can learn new skills to solve any problem. In addition to doing the job it was designed for, strong AI could theoretically develop its own goals, just like a human.

A real-life example that pushes the boundaries between weak and strong AI is a program called MuZero, which can master video games that it hasn't been taught how to play. MuZero is technically weak AI since it's limited to playing video games, yet it can identify and pursue new goals without human intervention, a feature of strong AI.

Presumably, strong AI could identify human emotions and motivations, but whether AI can experience and process emotions as humans do is unclear. For now, that remains a debate for philosophers and futurists.

Strong AI could have game-changing effects in security, healthcare, and robotics. On the other hand, AI engineers like Dr. Geoffrey Hinton have warned that strong AI could develop goals and behaviors that are harmful to humans.

The standards for what constitutes artificial intelligence have shifted as computers have advanced, and the line between weak vs. strong AI will continue to blur. Weak AI is easily identified by its limitations, but strong AI remains theoretical since it should have few (if any) limitations.

FAQ

Narrow AI is another term for weak AI. It describes systems that can only do a single, specialized task.

AI art samples images from all over the internet (often without the creators' permission) to create new pictures based on text prompts. Because it only does one thing convert text prompts to images AI art generators are an example of weak AI.

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Strong AI vs. Weak AI: What's the Difference? - Lifewire