AI has come to stay high

AI today is a topic of conversation, a subject for corporate presentations, a space for technological debates; in general, a term uttered by many who are familiar with a machine. AI is a concept that is being adopted by many sectors; indeed the latest and hottest buzz word in the world of technology.

However, the fact is Artificial Intelligence has remained in the nascent stage of development for quite a while. When one hears the word `artificial intelligence’ the visuals of different characters from science fiction come to mind. What was a mythical concept of time travel or spacecraft with extra-terrestrial creatures is not considered a futuristic science anymore? Though still primitive in form, AI can solve unique business problems, provided one knows and decides how to leverage the technology to its potential.

James Goodnight, Co-Founder and CEO of SAS says: `AI is certainly being hyped as another buzzword, and there are many companies rushing to jump on the AI bandwagon’. Despite the hype, AI is a significant emerging technology that will continue to grow in importance. Years ago the term `cloning’ became very popular; and in course of time, was included in the general context and usage, where anything which is replicated was described as `cloned’. Dolly, the sheep (the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell) became a widely talked about subject. Along the same lines, people have started using AI to describe any analytics problem, be it faulty equipment or credit card fraud. The catchword now is AI, and Sophia, the Robot has replaced Dolly sheep. With everyone using the buzzword AI, one needs to see whether reality aligns with this hype.

There is so much information on the internet stored in the last few years. Wall Street Journal recently stated that the internet is filling up with good morning messages, and largely by Indians, many of whom are yet new users of the internet! On a more serious note, there are huge quantities of data collected and stored in the recent times. Almost all information is online and accessible to net browsers. A tool to statistically filter, analyze and process large data sets, not merely as a process but with intelligence, is the primary need of industries, investors, for that matter, any establishment across sectors and geographies. A growing technology like AI can unlock the value of data, and eventually help transform businesses, industries, and above all, people’s experiences. It is no surprise that AI being such a powerful concept has become not just a household term, but a word across the technology world.

Though the research in Artificial Intelligence dates back to the 1940s, it is only around the 1980s that AI progressed from research to application. In recent years, however, interest in the field of artificial intelligence has sky-rocketed as evidenced by the amount of funding invested in researching and adopting it.

To go back to sci-fi, we have seen in many robots featuring stories about how the machine ultimately overpowers the man to the point of bringing about total annihilation. This threat could be as real as the creation of artificially intelligent robots. Well, known personalities like physicist Stephen Hawking and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have been stressing on the importance of regulating artificial intelligence.

There is merit in the thought that AI technology will help society in a range of areas like transportation, education, health, manufacturing, retail, arts, medicine and so on. It can be a danger though if used to build weaponry. Leaders across the world have found this worrisome, even terrifying.

One has to admit, turning a buzzword into business is exciting, but like communications specialist Lindsay Kwan says: The danger of artificial intelligence is that we can both overestimate its power today and underestimate its capabilities tomorrow.

Which, between the two, is riskier, is a matter of conjecture.

The world, at the moment, is awash with speculations, opinions, and fears about artificial intelligence and its perceived `threat’ to human held jobs. Many researchers and scientists are still of the conviction that AI cannot, in actuality, replace human intelligence. They still maintain that AI can assist and augment but never take the place of humans at the workplace.

AI has been an area of passion and pursuit for a long time. However, it is in the recent years that it has come to stay, moving from the research desk to active field. AI is now dominant, taking on an exponential role, influencing particularly the fields of gaming, natural language processing, speech and handwriting recognition and robotics.

Since artificial intelligence is poised to take on many tasks that the human has so far been performing, is there a threat of unemployment across the globe? How is AI going to impact the job scene world over?

Leading research and advisory firm, Gartner comforts job holders in its statement: Robots are not here to take away our jobs; they’re here to give us a promotion. Instead of replacing the human at work, artificial intelligence may increase the number of job opportunities, especially in healthcare, public sector, education, to name a few. As the gig economy is gaining popularity, retail, manufacturing and transportation could possibly be the first to adopt AI for work. Industry heads are not as optimistic as Gartner. Leading personalities Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking feel AI may go beyond taking away people’s jobs. AI could eventually become a real threat to human beings. For now, it is helpful and comforting to go with Gartner’s report which states by 2020, AI will generate 2.3 million jobs, exceeding the 1.8 million that it will remove.

When one of the Big Four consulting firms, Deloitte delved into UK census data for the last 140 plus years only to discover that technology has very steadily taken over many jobs that were being handled by humans. Deloitte also quickly pointed out that jobs in the professional sector have increased multifold.

This pattern of generating new jobs as and when a machine takes over current jobs will continue in this era of AI. Emerging technologies will allow for emerging new jobs, not only for people working with new technologies but also for the enablers who need to manage the increasing requirements of content development and training to bring people up to speed.

The fact is, AI is contributing in a major way to the evolving landscape of work. Going back to the gig economy, the concept is gaining prominent space as it provides scope for professional work within a time-bound period.  The big gig companies differ from traditional firms not only in conducting business online but also in allowing and encouraging individuals to freelance and engage `just in time’. As TED CEO Richard Saul Wurman sums up the online marketplace platform: For the first time in human history, individuals can design a life around the pursuit of interesting work.

AI is going definitely going to define the way work happens. How much humans will be involved in `working’ is a subject of speculation for anyone who is familiar with AI. But if we have to think about the next decade, we need to remember though AI is enabling a machine to be independent of man, it is dependent on data. The more data AI consumes the smarter it gets. But to sift data and feed AI and obtain output is a process as laborious as the creation of AI.

Google AI chief John Giannandrea explained this concept of AI’s need to be fed data by using an example involving his 4-year-old daughter. She was able to identify a 19th-century “penny-farthing” bicycle anywhere once he had told her what it was. But computers, need to be shown 100,000 penny-farthings before identifying one. Once they’d seen 100,000, they’d probably be better at identifying them than humans are.

Companies may talk at length about AI and secretly look forward to right-sizing their employee base by bringing in machines. However, they would need to clean up messy databases, work on file management and in overall make their data algorithm-friendly, before any machine can really take over a man’s job. How long will this take? Well, time will tell.

A span of 50 years in technology’s perspective can be deemed a very long period; however, if one goes through the article called ‘The Electronic Highway’ published by IEEE spectrum in 1969, it feels like the 2 engineers Robert E. Fenton and Karl W. Olson, traveled half a century ahead to come up with specific solutions for vehicle autonomy.  What is happening now in the automotive industry is what Fenton & Olson had offered as solutions. Though obsolete today, the solutions look at the future with predictions that are coming true now.

In a fast world, such as the one we live in today, commute needs to be swift, smooth with minimal effort by the commuter. Just as the autopilot system in airplanes was designed to relieve the pilot of some tasks so that he could sit back a bit, specially on long haul flights, the emerging self-driving cars require little or no effort from the driver to navigate the vehicle.

For a long time autonomous vehicles, though talked about in articles and technology forums remained a distant dream. The Electronic Highway notwithstanding, suitable technology with adequate software/hardware was a challenge. However, many automotive companies have created ready to hit the road self-driving cars that can drive, park, obey traffic signals, negotiate an intersection and navigate through busy roads. In his book `Rise of the Robot’, Martin Ford says Google’s autonomous fleet in 2012 had driven over 300,000 accident-free miles on roads ranging from freeways jammed with stop-and-go traffic to San Francisco’s famously convoluted Lombard Street. The next year, Google released data showing that its cars consistently outperformed the typical human driver not only in acceleration and braking, but as well in general defensive driving practices.

Almost every car manufacturer across the world is actively into making fully automated, or partially automated cars. The conservative, or rather cautious approach of not going in for fully automated vehicles is because decision-making – a critical aspect in driving cannot be fully owned by machines. Technology is advancing in leaps and bounds and yet every designer, manufacturer or user is aware that no technology can be 100% reliable – at least not as yet. While roads remain consistent with good conditions maintained, the surrounding environment is always dynamic. Traffic diversions, construction activities, weather conditions, sudden road blocks are situations which no system is equipped to handle end to end. And above all, the crux of the issue here lies in the fact that an autonomous car may not be able to decide when to seek the human driver’s intervention.

Having said, autonomous vehicles have some to stay. Self-driving cars’ contribution to society would be a huge reduction in the number of traffic jams and all cars will drive with equal speed and in adherence to traffic rules and lane discipline, thus minimizing the chaos that can occur due to the diverse driving styles of humans.

As Martin Ford states, after electricity, the single innovation that is central to the development of society is the automobile. Very soon, we will look back wistfully to recall the long late evening drives, steering the wheel in sheer pleasure while listening to music and enjoying the landscape.

The other side of the coin no more road rage, driving tickets or penalties!