By now, most of us are aware of artificial intelligence (AI) being an increasingly present part of our everyday lives. But, many of us would be quite surprised to learn of some of the skills AI already knows how to do. Here are 13 mind-blowing skills artificial intelligence can already do today.

1.           Read

Is one of your wishes to save time by only having to pay attention to the salient points of communication? Your wish has come true with artificial intelligence-powered SummarizeBot. Whether it’s news articles, weblinks, books, emails, legal documents, audio and image files, and more, automatic text summarization by artificial intelligence and machine learning reads communication and reports back the essential information. Currently, SummarizeBot can be used in Facebook Messenger or Slack and relies on natural language processing, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and blockchain technologies.

2.           Write

Would you believe that along with professional journalists, news organizations such as The New York Times, Washington Post, Reuters, and more rely on artificial intelligence to write? They do, and although this does include many "who, what, where, when, and how" formulaic pieces, AI is able to expand beyond this to more creative writing as well. Many marketers are turning to artificial intelligence to craft their social media posts. Even a novel has even been generated by artificial intelligence that was short-listed for an award.

3.           See

Machine vision is when computers can “see” the world, analyze visual data, and make decisions about it. There are so many amazing ways machine vision is used today, including enabling self-driving cars, facial recognition for police work, payment portals, and more. In manufacturing, the ability for machines to see helps in predictive maintenance and product quality control.

4.           Hear and understand

Did you know artificial intelligence is able to detect gunshots, analyze the sound, and then alert relevant agencies? This is one of the mind-blowing things AI can do when it hears and understands sounds. And who can refute the helpfulness of digital voice assistants to respond to your queries whether you want a weather report or your day’s agenda? Business professionals love the convenience, efficiency, and accuracy provided by AI through automated meeting minutes.  

5. Speak

Artificial intelligence can also speak. While it’s helpful (and fun) to have Alexa and Google Maps respond to your queries and give you directions, Google Duplex takes it one step further and uses AI to schedule appointments and complete tasks over the phone in very conversational language. It can respond accurately to the responses given by the humans it’s talking to as well. 

6. Smell

There are artificial intelligence researchers who are currently developing AI models that will be able to detect illnesses—just by smelling a human’s breath. It can detect chemicals called aldehydes that are associated with human illnesses and stress, including cancer, diabetes, brain injuries, and detecting the "woody, musky odor" emitted from Parkinson’s disease even before any other symptoms are identified. Artificially intelligent bots could identify gas leaks or other caustic chemicals, as well. IBM is even using AI to develop new perfumes.

7. Touch

Using sensors and cameras, there’s a robot that can identify "supermarket ripe" raspberries and even pick them and place them into a basket! Its creator says that it will eventually be able to pick one raspberry every 10 seconds for 20 hours a day! The next step for AI tactile development is to link touch with other senses.

8. Move

Artificial intelligence propels all kinds of movement from autonomous vehicles to drones to robots. The Alter 3 production at Tokyo’s New National Theatre features robots that can generate motion autonomously. 

9. Understand emotions

Market research is being aided by AI tools that track a person’s emotions as they watch videos. Artificial emotional intelligence can gather data from a person’s facial expressions, body language, and more, analyze it against an emotion database to determine what emotion is likely being expressed, and then determine an action based on that info.  

10. Play games

It’s not all serious business with artificial intelligence—it can learn to play games such as chess, Go, and poker (which was an incredible feat)! And, turns out that AI can learn to play these games plus compete and even beat humans at them!

11. Debate

IBM’s Project Debater showed us that artificial intelligence can even be successful at debating humans in complex subjects. Not only is it able to research a topic, but it can also create an engaging point of view and craft rebuttals against a human opponent.

12. Create

Artificial intelligence can even master creative processes, including making visual art, writing poetry, composing music, and taking photographs. Google’s AI was even able to create its own AI “child”—that outperformed human-made counterparts.

13.   Read your mind

This is truly mind-boggling—AI that can read your mind! It can interpret brain signals and then create speech. Impressive and life-changing for those with speech impairment, but a little bit unnerving when you consider the mind-reading aspect of the skill. It’s no surprise that some of the biggest tech giants, including Facebook and Elon Musk have their own projects underway to capitalize on AI’s mind-reading potential.

Now imagine if these 13 mind-blowing skills were all combined into one super artificial intelligence! Frightening or exhilarating? That’s up to you to decide, but I think we can all agree, it would be mind-blowing!