YEARS ago, we were munching on popcorn or in our pyjamas at home watching movies about Artificial Intelligence (AI), awed by how smart technology was. Today, AI has become a reality and countries are racing to be advanced in the technology, with the application of AI said to greatly enhance levels of economic and social development, among others. AI is developed to learn and think more like humans, and is used in specific fields including medical diagnosis, voice recognition, autonomous driving and smart city administration. This technology will soon change the job landscape as well as impact data privacy, both now a debate among technology experts, organisations, governments and the general public. ''Artificial Intelligence is set to become a major technological revolution over the next few years.

ARTIFICIAL Intelligence (AI) is developing faster than we imagined. If we look closely, our lives are being enhanced by AI or at least with technologies and applications using algorithms that monitor and learn from our behaviour. Applications such as Google, Facebook, Spotify, Uber and Netflix use machine learning to extract street names from photos, recognise and tag friends, find favourite songs, estimate arrival times and pick-up locations, and recommend movies. As AI is developed to learn and think more like humans and to replace lower-skilled roles, its impact on future employment and data privacy has become a point of contention among technology experts, organisations, governments and the general public. In response, the University of Southampton Malaysia (UoSM) will be hosting Prof Dame Wendy Hall in a public lecture on The Artificial Intelligence Revolution on Sept 30 at The Majestic Hotel Kuala Lumpur.