What is artificial intelligence and in what ways does it benefit society?

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You wake up in the morning and your phone unlocks after scanning your face. You get in the car to go to work and your GPS navigation suggests an alternative route because there’s more traffic than usual on the one you take every day. Your favorite shopping app suggests a pair of shoes that suits your style, and your bank sends you a notification about a product that fits in perfectly with your savings plans. Is it magic? No, it's progress. It's artificial intelligence, which has gone beyond science fiction to improve many aspects of our daily lives.

• Machine learning: The ability of an artificial intelligence to learn by itself. It is based on a cycle of learning from data, training, and results. There are several subtypes depending on whether its learning requires human supervision or whether the AI is allowed to learn autonomously, according to established rules. It is often used with virtual assistants and chatbots, among others.
  
• Deep learning: This aims to recreate how humans learn through what are called neural networks, which consist of interconnected nodes that emulate the network of neurons in a human brain. It is used, for example, in image-based product searches.
• Reinforcement learning: It is inspired by behavioral psychology and aims to enable AI to design strategies automatically. It is very practical for predictive maintenance or personalizing customer experiences.
• Generative adversarial networks: These are a type of algorithms that are implemented by a system of two neural networks. These two networks compete with each other. It is used to generate objects and experiences from samples (e.g., photographs).
• Natural language processing: This investigates how machines communicate with people with the aim of making them understand and extract relevant information. Its applications are manifold, ranging from sentiment or opinion analysis to document anonymization and chatbot training.
• Computer vision: This teaches computers to "see" and interpret the content of digital images, so that they can produce symbolic information that can be interpreted. It is used for object recognition, image restoration, and scene reconstruction.
• Speech recognition: It is intended to enable humans to communicate with computers and vice versa and is especially useful for voice-controlled vehicle navigation systems, dictation applications, and systems for people with disabilities.
• Knowledge graph: A graph is a way of representing relationships between entities and creating links between data and metadata. When the content of graphs is enriched and they are able to perform automatic "intelligent" processing of data, they become knowledge graphs. They are very popular in information organization systems. 
• Augmented reality: This is a set of technologies that allow the user to interact with the real world through devices that add virtual graphical information, so that the users see the world around them at the same time, but with virtual objects superimposed. It is used in a huge number of applications, from operations to virtual testing of make-up colors to recreating how a particular piece of furniture will look in your home.