FINAL WORD
Promoting interoperability and
decentralised AI will ultimately
lead to an era of AGI (Artificial
General Intelligence) that will
empower businesses.
A
rtificial intelligence (AI)
is making its presence
felt in every aspect of our
daily lives – from the new
breed of virtual assistants
in our homes, to the spam
filters that eliminate unwanted spam
emails from our inboxes. As AI algorithms
and the computing power that drives
them- improve year-on-year, their ability to
positively transform the world in which we
live, is unquestionable.
In fact, PwC predicts that AI could
contribute up to US$320 billion to the
Middle East economy by 2030. Another
recent PwC research report revealed how
companies are increasingly initiating AI
models at the very core of their production
processes, in a bid to enhance operational
decision-making and provide forward-
looking intelligence to people in every
function throughout the business.
To many, this move to AI is no surprise.
After all, robots have been used for years
in many manufacturing disciplines, so the
progression to AI seems like a logical next
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS
INTELLIGENT
TECH CHANNELS
Issue 25
step. Either way, there is no doubt that the
future is one in which machines and humans
will work alongside one another with
increasing regularity.
Unanswered questions-the
trust element
AI is big business – US venture capital
investment in the sector reached US$6.6
billion in the first three quarters of 2018,
compared to US$3.9 billion in the same
period the year before. Meanwhile, AI
companies have become attractive take-
over targets, with the number acquired
outright reaching a record 35 companies at a
combined value at US$3.8 billion.
Despite this positive outlook, some
unanswered questions remain. Concerns
continue to grow about the impact of AI on
privacy, cybersecurity, employment, social
inequality and the environment. Customers,
employees, boards, regulators and corporate
partners are all asking the same question –
can we trust AI?
As AI in the marketplace increasingly
becomes controlled by just a handful
of big companies that own cloud-based
AI platforms and application program
interfaces (APIs), the issue of trust
is stimulating growing calls for the
decentralisation of AI. The main fear for
businesses is that a centralised model will
lead to the monopolisation of the AI market,
which in turn could cause unfair pricing and
stifle innovation.
A new AI model
Decentralised AI – born at the intersection
of Blockchain, on-device AI, and the
Internet of Things (IoT) – helps solve this
challenge and promotes transparency. It also
ensures interoperability and encourages
innovation among an unlimited number of
other AI companies. Ecosystems such as
SingularityNET are already fostering wider
collaboration among the global decentralised
AI community – a case of safety in numbers,
if you will.
More than that, such marketplaces
have been designed to ensure that – in the
event of AI reaching mass market usage –
contributors and users of the technology will
65