Artificial intelligence development has seen an "amazing renaissance" and is beginning to solve problems that were once seen as science fiction, according to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

Machine learning, machine vision, and natural language processing are all strands of AI that are being developed by technology giants such as Amazon, Alphabet's Google and Facebook for various uses. For example, Amazon's voice assistant Alexa, which is in its Echo speaker, relies on natural language processing – the ability for computers to understand human speech.

These AI developments were praised by the Amazon founder.

"It is a renaissance, it is a golden age," Bezos told an audience at the Internet Association's annual gala last week.

"We are now solving problems with machine learning and artificial intelligence that were … in the realm of science fiction for the last several decades. And natural language understanding, machine vision problems, it really is an amazing renaissance."