Artificial Intelligence: A ‘Real-world’ problem solver in the midst of paradoxes

Artificial Intelligence is at the core of every strategic discussion that happens today in the corner office. 2016 has been the year of some startling moves in Artificial Intelligence such as driverless cars, virtual agents, employee assistance, and chatbots to name a few. In the years to come, we are inevitably going to experience Artificial Intelligence and robotics in our everyday life. This is an indication of the upcoming radical changes in the way we look at the real-world problems. Here’s a look at what lies in the future of Artificial Intelligence despite the prevailing paradoxes.

By Kalyan Kumar

For the 21st Century Enterprise, the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been the key focus area in the recent past. Over the next one and half decades, AI is going to become a part of our everyday life. Today, machines might appear to be ‘encroaching’ in human domains because our minds are attuned to think that machines intrude, and might replace our jobs and eventually humans. Thanks to all sci-fi movies that we have been watching since our childhoods! On the contrary, the future is full of tremendous opportunities if we reimagine our relationship with machines. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ 19th Annual Global CEO Survey, 2016, 77% of participants believe that technology advances such as AI will transform their businesses in the next five years. Essentially, machines are going to work in tangent with our brains. It’s going to be all about human-machine augmentation and co-operative AI abilities to solve the real-world problems in future. Having said that, AI is going through several levels of transformation before it will ultimately become a real-world problem solver. The future of AI will become clear if we discuss the paradoxes associated with it.

Who’s Programmed: AI or Humans?

The answer is both. Yes, humans too are programmed. Humans go through a programmed upbringing. They learn to talk, walk, learn and serve. They continue to evolve, and for the past one-century or so humans are evolving with technology. The human evolution with technology has led us to a phase where ‘virtual assistance’ has become a reality. We have graduated from the phase of utilizing technology as a tool to the phase of using technology to replace tasks and business operations. Basically, programmed humans are programming AI technologies. In turn, programmed technologies are further programming humans. At present, AI is trying to think like a human by understanding the three cores of human operations—brain, senses, and hormones. Recently, for example, HRL created a chip that learns like the brain by altering the synapses that connects its neurons. In the next five years, we will notice the AI technologies to advance in the journey of replicating the cores of humans operations.

Emotions for Technological Advances?

Who would have ever thought that human emotions would become essential for technological advances in the coming future? Today, one of the biggest opportunity area in the field of AI is the recognition of ‘accurate’ human emotions. While numerous devices are being leveraged for voice detection and facial recognition, AI is yet to get to the level where it can accurately detect and prescribe a medicine for depression for example. However, AI is being significantly utilized in the area of online shopping and customer services. For example, organizations are evaluating chatbots to gather customer feedback, which will soon be utilized for business purposes after analyzing patterns that’ll help them discover what makes a customer happy. Similarly, banks are using software robots for performing banking operations. AI-based technologies such as Computer Vision help in achieving better outcomes through improved predictions. Industry segments such as medical diagnosis, oil exploration, and demand forecasting further demonstrate such benefits. Correspondingly, there has been a lot of buzz around AI in almost all major industrial sectors. However, we believe that industries such as media, publishing, advertising and financial services will be the front runners in adopting the AI technologies, closely followed by healthcare and life sciences to name a few. Nevertheless, human language is extremely intricate. When organizations embark on a journey to solve any business problems with AI, the merger of both human and machine brains will be vital for success. In other words, a hybrid way of utilizing the human mind along with the machines will be required.

‘No’ Voice for Social Interactions?

Gone are the days when voice used to be the dominant source of our daily social interactions. The texting culture amongst millennial seems to be replacing the typical way of social interactions. Messaging applications and networking sites are the nascent example of the link between humans and some level of AI. Messaging is the way the millennial interact with each other and decide on what product and content they buy and consume respectively. This definitely is an area where chatbots will continue to play a significant role, especially until mobile phones completely disappear from our lives. Having said that, chatbots are still being evolved to become real-world business solvers and to reach at a level where they can engage with customers and brands through mobile phones in a creative manner, and thus non-voice ways of social interactions will be the key focus area of AI experts.

Man Versus Machines?

‘Man versus machine’ is the prime topic of discussion for the people who are interested in AI. Some of the most intelligent minds such as scientists, economists, technologists and engineers are debating whether AI will eliminate white-collar jobs that require high level of information processing. Interestingly, AI will not eliminate jobs. Rather, it will require organizations to redesign tasks, management practices, and performance goals while implementing AI technologies. AI may be used to automate specific tasks, changing how workers allocate their time, and require them to interact with systems in new ways. Workers may spend less time performing routine tasks, handling only exceptional cases and spending more time focusing on work that requires high-end involvement. For all these reasons, we believe AI technology deployments are different from traditional IT deployments and their impact on organizations requires a greater thought. Besides, demand for expertise in AI technologies, such as machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing is on the rise. Organizations may struggle to staff teams with the talent required to pilot and build systems using these technologies. The discussion, therefore, is not about ‘man versus machines’; it’s about machines augmented humans and human augmented machines.

Beyond the Mist of Paradoxes Lies the Clear Future

The impact of AI on businesses will grow significantly over the next few years. AI will be leveraged to solve real-world problems in a co-operative manner wherein machines and humans will work in an augmented way. The debate of ‘Man Versus Machine’ seems to be passé. Moreover, AI-enabled social interactions are going to be essential in electronic commerce, and in turn, AI is going to become a vital part of customer services. AI will go through radical human–emotion driven changes, which will open tremendous opportunities for technological advances and solving real-world problems. Basically AI will become part of our everyday life. It’s changing, and will change the way we approach and solve real-world problems. Paradoxes such as the ones mentioned in this article will continue to exist in the near future. However, beyond the mist of these ironies will exist the clear future of AI.

The author is executive vice president & chief technology officer – IT services, HCL Technologies

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