WORLD ACADEMY OF INFORMATICS AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCES
ISSN : 2278-1315
AI will branch out into support functions such as HR or
A MOVE TOWARDS “TRANSPARENT AI”
optimizing supply chains, where decisions around logistics, as
The adoption of AI across wider society – particularly when
well as hiring and firing, will become increasingly informed
it involves dealing with human data – is hindered by the
by automation. AI solutions for managing compliance and
“black box problem”. Mostly, its workings seem arcane and
legal issues are also likely to be increasingly adopted. As
unfathomable without a thorough understanding of what it’s
these tools will often be fit-for-purpose across a number of
actually doing.
organizations, they will increasingly be offered as-a-service,
To achieve its full potential AI needs to be trusted – we need
offering smaller businesses a bite of the AI cherry, too.
to know what it is doing with our data, why, and how it
makes its decisions when it comes to issues that affect our
We’re also likely to see an increase in businesses using their
lives. This is often difficult to convey – particularly as what
data to generate new revenue streams. Building up big
makes AI particularly useful is its ability to draw
databases of transactions and customer activity within its
connections and make inferences which may not be obvious
industry essentially lets any sufficiently data-savvy business
or may even seem counter-intuitive to us.
begin to “Googlify” itself. Becoming a source of data-as-a-
But building trust in AI systems isn’t just about reassuring
service has been transformational for businesses such as John
the public. Research and business will also benefit from
Deere, which offers analytics based on agricultural data to
openness which exposes bias in data or algorithms. Reports
help farmers grow crops more efficiently. In 2019 more
have even found that companies are sometimes holding back
companies will adopt this strategy as they come to understand
from deploying AI due to fears they may face liabilities in
the value of the information they own.
the future if current technology is later judged to be unfair or
unethical.
MORE JOBS WILL BE CREATED BY AI THAN WILL BE
In 2019 we’re likely to see an increased emphasis on
LOST TO IT.
measures designed to increase the transparency of AI. This
As I mentioned in my introduction to this post, in the long-
year IBM unveiled technology developed to improve the
term its uncertain if the rise of the machines will lead to
traceability of decisions into its AI OpenScale technology.
human unemployment and social strife, a utopian workless
This concept gives real-time insights into not only what
future, or (probably more realistically) something in between.
decisions are being made, but how they are being made,
For the next year, at least, though, it seems it isn’t going to be
drawing connections between data that is used, decision
immediately problematic in this regard. Gartner predicts that
weighting and potential for bias in information.
by the end of 2019, AI will be creating more jobs than it is
The General Data Protection Regulation, put into action
taking. While 1.8 million jobs will be lost to automation –
across Europe this year, gives citizens some protection
with manufacturing in particular singled out as likely to take a
against decisions which have “legal or other significant”
hit – 2.3 million will be created. In particular, Gartner’s report
impact on their lives made solely by machines. While it isn’t
finds, these could be focused on education, healthcare, and the
yet a blisteringly hot political potato, its prominence in
public sector. A likely driver for this disparity is the emphasis
public discourse is likely to grow during 2019, further
placed on rolling out AI in an “augmenting” capacity when it
encouraging businesses to work towards transparency.
comes to deploying it in non-manual jobs. Warehouse workers
and retail cashiers have often been replaced wholesale by
AI AND AUTOMATION DRILLING DEEPER INTO
automated technology. But when it comes to doctors and
EVERY BUSINESS
lawyers, AI service providers have made concerted effort to
In 2018, companies began to get a firmer grip on the
present their technology as something which can work
realities of what AI can and can’t do. After spending the
alongside human professionals, assisting them with repetitive
previous few years getting their data in order and identifying
tasks while leaving the “final say” to them. This means those
areas where AI could bring quick rewards, or fail fast, big
industries benefit from the growth in human jobs on the
business is as a whole ready to move ahead with proven
technical side – those needed to deploy the technology and
initiatives, moving from piloting and soft-launching to
train the workforce on using it – while retaining the
global deployment.
professionals who carry out the actual work.
In financial services, vast real-time logs of thousands of
transactions per second are routinely parsed by machine
learning algorithms. Retailers are proficient at grabbing data
through till receipts and loyalty programmes and feeding it
into AI engines to work out how to get better at selling us
things. Manufacturers use predictive technology to know
precisely what stresses machinery can be put under and
when it is likely to break down or fail.
In 2019 we’ll see growing confidence that this smart,
predictive technology, bolstered by learnings it has picked
up in its initial deployments, can be rolled out wholesale
across all of a business’s operations.
www.waims.co.in
For the financial services, the outlook is perhaps slightly
grimmer. Some estimates, such as those made by former
Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit in 2017, predict that the
sector’s human workforce could be 30% smaller within five
years. With back-office functions increasingly being managed
by machines, we could be well on our way to seeing that come
true by the end of next year.
AI ASSISTANTS WILL BECOME TRULY USEFUL
AI is genuinely interwoven into our lives now, to the point
that most people don’t give a second thought to the fact that
when they search Google, shop at Amazon or watch Netflix,
highly precise, AI-driven predictions are at work to make the
experience flow.
ENDEAVOR 2019 | WAIMS ACADMIC PRESS
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