As the world of technology develops and changes, people come across many new evolutions and creations of the tech they know and love. One of those advancements being Artificial intelligence, better known as AI. Whether it is an automated vacuum cleaner, a movie recommendation system, or something you could ask for a quick answer, AI is everywhere. These advancements and different sub-genres initially beg the question, is AI all the same?
Another way to look at it is by looking at trucks. While all trucks are the same, you have different categories of trucks like pickups and flatbeds. Just like trucks, there are different kinds of AI. The two main kinds are Traditional and Generative. Traditional AI contains things like personal assistants and household tech, while Generative AI encompasses things like chatbots and assists with certain search engines.
TRADITIONAL AI
Chances are, if one has an iPhone, they use AI almost every single day. Most apple phones, or any apple product, come with an AI assistant, often named Siri. Siri is an example of traditional AI, which means that instead of creating content, like generative AI, it analyzes data and finds patterns to give them just the right answer to what they were looking for. Other examples of these analyzing traditional AI devices are Alexa, online chess games, and recommendation systems. However, according to the article “Exploring the shift from Traditional to Generative AI,” these systems are quite helpful in aiding everyday life, “within their defined boundaries but lack the ability to create new content.” (ETS)
GENERATIVE AI
That is where Generative AI comes in. Generative AI’s whole purpose is to create, like chatbots for example. Chatbots are software like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and DALL-E are all examples of this genre. Generative AI uses a similar computing process of recognizing patterns, and observations, but instead of finding things, they create them by inputting the patterns they learn, and giving back music, pictures, or audio. However, these systems aren’t the most reliable and are often very time consuming to finish a simple task that has been requested. Furthermore, time isn’t the only thing they consume a lot of, “it takes a massive amount of data for generative AI to function,” states the article “What’s the difference between Traditional and Generative AI.”
THE KEY DIFFERENCES
Both kinds use the same format of how to get their information, but what they do with that information is where they differ. Now, while some Chatbots will have the functions of answering questions and gathering information to do so, the same way as virtual assistants; that doesn’t actually mean they are the same. According to Forbes, “traditional AI can analyze data and tell you what it sees, but generative AI can use that same data to create something entirely new.” Not only do creating and answering differ in time consumption, but they also differ in how in depth the research goes. Furthermore, traditional AI searches for similar questions in articles and web resources to fully answer the questions, whereas generative AI searches for specific key words, and often mixes up the information.
Overall, these AI systems may have similar functions and formulas; they are not the same. As they differ in the accuracy of their responses, the time consumption and the basis of what they are made for.
