Artificial vs. Human Brain: Which One Wins?
You might think AI (artificial intelligence) systems have humans beat in almost every way imaginable; there's seemingly nothing they can't do. And while AI has certainly surpassed humans in some areas, there are still plenty where humans hold the advantage. To put your mind at ease and quell any lingering fears, here are 10 things AI does better than humans—and 10 things only humans truly excel in.
1. Research
AI can research topics and do thorough deep-dives at a speed humans can't replicate. This makes it extremely easy for AI tools to pull quick facts from numerous sources and give an accurate overview of a subject, no matter how complex the material.
2. Processing Large Datasets
Building on the previous point, the reason AI can research so quickly is due to its ability to process large datasets in a very short amount of time. While humans will need to take time to sort through and understand the information they're given, AI can examine, process, and interpret data almost instantaneously.
3. Translating Languages
Because AI can learn from what it's fed, its capacity is arguably far larger than an average human's brain. In the context of languages, nuances, slang, and idioms can be difficult to grasp for learners, but AI can translate between multiple languages with much higher accuracy and efficiency than humans.
4. Medical Diagnostics
You might feel wary of trusting AI systems over an actual doctor, but believe it or not, AI can diagnose diseases much more quickly and accurately than medical professionals. In fact, AI can spot certain health conditions before symptoms even appear.
5. Summarizing Long Texts
As previously mentioned, AI can process large amounts of data no sweat. This means you can feed it a lengthy paper or novel, and it can give you a fairly accurate summary of the content almost immediately. Need it to list out key points? It can do that, too.
6. Automating Repetitive Tasks
When it comes to repetitive tasks, AI systems can automate these and do them far more quickly and accurately than humans can. Humans are fallible, which means mistakes are sometimes inevitable. Once you program an AI to do what it needs to do, it won't make an error.
7. Remembering Details
AI can remember details, facts, and obscure pieces of information that it has learned from previous conversations and contexts. Humans, on the other hand, may not have as good a memory and are more likely to forget things, especially if they're not deemed important.
8. Create Instantly
AI can create art, graphics, realistic images, videos, edits, diagrams, and songs almost instantly. Whereas it may take a human a few hours, days, or weeks to craft the same thing, AI only needs a single prompt and a few minutes.
Image Creator by Microsoft Bing on Wikimedia
9. Write Code with Fewer Errors
Even a seasoned programmer may occasionally make mistakes. AI systems, however, can punch out code not only quickly but also with far fewer errors than if it were done manually by a human. This speed and accuracy save companies much more time—and money.
10. Work Nonstop
AI systems can work nonstop, no matter what time of day it is. Unlike humans, they don't suffer from creative blocks or require a giant mug of coffee to get going in the morning. Instead, AI offers constant top-notch performance with no need for downtime.
But does AI truly have humans beat? Not so fast. AI systems might be intelligent, but humans still outperform in numerous ways.
1. Emotional Intelligence
Humans are much more emotionally intelligent than AI systems. After all, while AI may be able to infer emotions and meanings from the information it's given, it can't understand their complexities and nuances like humans do.
2. Judge Wrong vs. Right
AI can't make moral judgments in the way humans do. Whereas we can sort through difficult dilemmas to come up with better solutions, this is where AI struggles. Life or death decisions are especially hard for these systems. For example, should an autonomous vehicle slam into a wall and kill its passengers, or should it serve and kill the pedestrians on the sidewalk?
3. Feel Genuine Empathy
Just as AI systems lack emotional intelligence, they can't feel genuine empathy, either. They might be able to mimic a human response by responding sympathetically, but they won't be able to understand your emotions better than a human can.
4. Explaining Decisions
AI might be able to make a decision for you, but ask it to explain why and it might just balk. And that's no surprise: after all, AI provides responses based on predictions and the algorithms and models it learns from. Give it the task of explaining a complex decision, and you'll see it won't understand the complexities of the problem in the way humans do.
5. Crafting with Creativity
Sure, AI may be able to create art, realistic images, videos, and songs on the fly, but these are (surprise, surprise) not done with any creativity. AI merely takes the patterns it learns through vast datasets it has learned from, then spits something back out that's close to your prompt. Humans, though? There's a lot of emotion and thought that goes into the creation process.
Rachael Gorjestani on Unsplash
6. Adapt On-the-Fly
Humans can adapt to new material and changes on the fly. That's why our critical thinking skills can't quite be beat just yet by AI—we know how to adjust our perspectives and think beyond the box, pitching novel solutions each time the landscape changes.
7. Personalized Experiences
AI might be able to give perfect customer service each time, but it can't create personalized experiences the way humans can. Consumers are much more likely to forge better, meaningful connections when they're chatting with a real human being.
8. Understand Social Cues
AI can't understand social cues and nuances the way humans can, either. While humans can navigate through social interactions and pick up body language, facial expression, tone of voice, and context that allow them to "read the room," AI can't grasp or interpret these subtleties as accurately or effectively.
9. Multitask
It might seem surprising, but AI can't handle juggling multiple complex tasks. Humans, on the other hand, might be able to stay on an important client call while editing presentation slides and drafting out a project proposal in a different window.
10. Make Sense
AI systems can hallucinate facts and pieces of information, and regularly do. Humans deal with hard facts, sourced from reputable sources. When it comes to making sense, humans understand the world far better than a computer can.
