What is Artificial Intelligence and how is it different from traditional programming?
What is Artificial Intelligence and how is it different from traditional programming?
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17-Apr-2025
Updated on 22-Apr-2025
Khushi Singh
22-Apr-2025Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science that focuses on building systems capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence. These tasks include learning from data, recognizing patterns, making decisions, understanding natural language, and adapting to new situations. AI encompasses various techniques such as machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, and computer vision to simulate human-like cognitive abilities.
Difference Between AI and Traditional Programming:
The main difference lies in how the system solves problems and adapts to new data.
In traditional programming, developers write explicit instructions (rules and logic) for the system to follow. The system behaves exactly as programmed and cannot learn or improve on its own. For example, if you’re building a spam filter using traditional methods, you'd write rules like: “If the subject contains the word ‘win’ and the body includes ‘money,’ mark as spam.”
In contrast, AI systems, particularly those using machine learning, are trained on large amounts of data rather than being programmed with fixed rules. They learn patterns from data and can improve their accuracy over time. For instance, a machine learning-based spam filter analyzes thousands of emails labeled as spam or not spam and learns to identify new spam emails based on the patterns it has observed.
Key Differences:
In essence, AI mimics human intelligence, whereas traditional programming follows human instructions. This makes AI especially powerful in solving complex, data-heavy, or ambiguous problems where manually coding every rule is impractical.