Following a Davos in which tech and futurology dominated, Radha Ahlstrom-Vij looks at how artificial intelligence is becoming an inreasingly hot topic for business...
Amidst routine Davos platitudes, the technology agenda this year seemed to espouse both a sense of “the usual” and, then, a refreshing spark of (artificial?) life.
Among the “usual” chatter, two major panels appeared to dominate in the media. The Future of the Digital Economy argued for the internet’s ability to solve most of mankind’s problems, from farming to healthcare to education, and hammered home the need for improved broadband connectivity across the world. The New Digital Context, on the other hand, convened Marissa Mayer (Yahoo), Marc Benioff (Salesforce), John Chambers (Cisco), Randall Stephenson (AT&T) and Gavin Patterson (BT), who dove a little deeper into pressing issues like privacy and national security, the internet of things and the future of customer-driven software.
Both panels reinforced the current shift toward an all-digital economy, where hyper-personalised, predictive and always-on intelligence dominates. Forrester CEO George Colony, who moderated the Digital Context panel at Davos, said it right when he noted, “The (current) age of the customer underpins what’s coming next in tech: context-driven systems, the Internet of everything, and customer-centric software.”
It’s no wonder, then, that the most controversial conversation at Davos extended this premise to its often ensuing conclusion – Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The debate on AI was led not by industry but by academia. University of California (UC) Berkeley Professor Stuart Russell, a world-renowned expert in AI, brought up the concern that robotics is rapidly progressing and at risk of going astray. Russell argued that AI needs to be carefully calibrated in accordance with human values in order to mitigate any destructive consequences such as human unemployment and general subservience to machines. Riffing off recent highly-public discussions, in which Russell, Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates and others called for researchers to investigate ways to curb the destructive potential effects of AI, Russell expounded upon some very real concerns held by tech magnates and citizens alike.
That AI is a controversial topic goes without saying. However, it is crucial that one takes a step back from fear-mongering to assess the short term and long term realities at hand. Contrary to what proponents of ‘The Singularity’ might believe, many believe we are actually years away from solid artificial intelligence being able to do anything worthwhile. “Natural stupidity will beat out AI anytime – when it comes to really messing things up,” said Alison Gopnik, Psychology Professor at UC Berkeley, who also shared the Davos panel on AI with Dr Russell.
New York University Professor Gary Marcus, another robotics expert, pointed out at Web Summit this year (and, before that, in a 2013 New Yorker piece on AI hype) – “That machines can beat human reflexes is not news – the real question is when are machines going to match humans in judgement and in learning new tasks?” Marcus posits that AI is nowhere near the point of human intelligence because of its obsession with statistics and big data, i.e. it is preoccupied with the collection, analysis and storage of large information sets but not with the conversion of such information into real-time sentiment, learning or decision-making.
In the 1970s, Professor Sir James Lighthill similarly called AI an outright failure in accomplishing the "grandiose objectives" which it purported to achieve, in his famous Lighthill report to Parliament. This report effectively ended the British research agenda into AI. Fast forward forty years, and we are again flying the AI flag, albeit from the other side of the pond.
Regardless of where you side on the AI issue, the debate shows no sign of abating. While some consider AI to be close to a trillion USD market – with Google, Microsoft, IBM, Apple and Facebook all investing heavily in everything from driverless cars to predictive wearable technology – others wonder if we are, once again, amidst another Lighthill moment. What is certain, though, is that the debate around its potential implications for commerce and industry in the short- and medium-term is only set to expand in the coming months and years.
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