Artificial Intelligence & its Impact on Business

PRELUDE

Technological Innovations have been the fundamental drivers for economic growth for more than 150 years. The most important of these are what economists call general purpose technologies like steam engine, electricity, engines run on petroleum variants, etc. Each innovation had its own ripple effect which led to complementary innovations and opportunities. Technological advancement gave rise to manufacturing of cars, airplanes, computers and phones and the transition from its crude form to the most advance smart forms today is phenomenal. Companies as diverse as Apple, Uber, Tesla and FedEx found ways to leverage the technology to create profitable new business models.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE – THE TECHNOLOGY FOR FUTURE

The most important general-purpose technology of our era is Artificial Intelligence and in particular, machine learning (ML). Artificial Intelligence (AI)- Interestingly is not a new term. It was first used by Alan Turing in 1950. But recently, we are seeing an acceleration because the computational power as well as available data is going upward with exponential growth.

Machine Learning is nothing but, the machine’s ability to keep improving its performance without humans having to explain exactly how to accomplish all the tasks it is given. Within just the past few years machine learning has become far more effective and widely available, enabling us to build systems that learn how to perform tasks on their own. Human brain is a super computer which knows and holds immense data, but we are not able to explain how we do a lot of things – right from recognizing a face to making a smart move in the game of Chess. Prior to the introduction of ML, this inability to articulate our own knowledge meant that we could not automate many tasks.

We, humans learn from experience while computers follow instructions through programs. The question is, can computers learn from experience? The answer is yes; and for computers, experience is nothing but data. This is called machine learning.

In the sphere of business, AI is poised to have a transformational impact on the scale of existing technologies or is bound to take a disruptive role in the whole business process. Although many companies around the world have adapted Artificial Intelligence in their business processes, most big opportunities have not yet been tapped. The effects of AI will be more visible in the coming years, as manufacturing, retail, transportation, finance, healthcare, banking, education, and virtually every other industry transform their business models and core processes to take advantage of machine learning.

AI TODAY

One of the major developments is around physical AI, that is robotics and autonomous vehicles. Google cars and the Super Social humanoid Robot Sophia has caught the imagination of everyone. Second area is the computer vision—whether it’s image processing or video processing. Similarly, we are seeing a lot of natural-language work being done and virtual agents or conversational interfaces termed as Chatbots becoming common now. We all have supercomputers at our fingertips – the smart phone. The improved spell-checks that you have when you are typing an email or a message on your smartphone, this is all powered by machine learning.

When it comes to the human language, you will notice that your Siri or Google Assistant learns every day, and the understanding becomes better the more you use it. That is obviously machine learning in the background. There has been a rapid improvement in the quality of voice recognition technology that now Siri understands and responds to your queries with a 95% accuracy.

The latest versions of iPhone as well as some android phones use AI for face recognition to unlock the phone. You may also have noticed that Facebook and other apps now recognize many of your friends’ faces in posted photos and prompt you to tag them with their names. Image recognition is even replacing ID cards in offices, laboratories and factories. Vision systems, such as those used in self-driving cars like Waymo and Google Car used to make mistakes in identifying a pedestrian, but now they make less often than one mistake in 30 million frames.

Intelligent agents are being used by the cyber security companies to detect malware, and by PayPal to prevent money laundering. Insurance companies and major banks offer timely advice to improve customer support using AI technology. Dozens of companies are using Machine Learning to decide which trades to execute on Wall Street and other stock exchanges across the globe. Amazon and Alibaba employ ML to optimize inventory and improve product recommendations to customers.

AI has always been an integral part of UAE Government’s strategic plans and has been introduced in one form or another by the governmental agencies, latest being the UAE Public Prosecution introducing artificial intelligence into legal proceedings. From RTA customer service and drivers’ training to autonomous vehicles and mass transit, AI is at the heart of Dubai’s expanding mobility sector. Dubai Health Strategy 2021 of Dubai Health Authority (DHA) focuses on technology and automation, through AI and robotics.

ML systems are not only replacing old algorithms in many applications but are now superior at many tasks that were once done best by humans. Reaching this threshold opens vast possibilities for transforming the workplace and the economy.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND JOBS

In the nineteenth-century textile workers destroyed the mechanical looms that threatened their livelihoods, and in the twentieth century India saw huge strikes against computers. Similarly, with the new era of AI and automation how nervous about the future of our own livelihoods should we be?

According to Gartner, Inc. the American research and advisory firm providing Information Technology related insight for IT and other business leaders located across the world, artificial intelligence (AI) will automate 1.8 million people out of work by 2020. Though the news of job losses catches the headlines, it tells only a small part of the story. While you dig a bit deeper into the information, you will see Gartner also predicts AI will create 2.3 million jobs by 2020, driving a net gain of 500,000 new jobs.

Artificial Intelligence could threaten unskilled jobs through automation, but it will also potentially create different kinds of jobs. The workforce will have to undergo extensive training to equip themselves with the new skill sets required for these future jobs. According to a study called ‘The Next Era of Human-Machine Partnerships’, an estimated 85 per cent of jobs in 2030 have not been invented yet.

FINAL WORDS

Today, technology is transforming the way business is done, powered by Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain. We are on the starting block of the Golden Age of Information Technology and it is time for businesses to take a hard look at their organizations and find ways to start integrating these latest tech trends. Yes, the change is coming at breakneck speed, what I have elaborated in this article is just the tip of the iceberg. Be ready for the greatest technological revolution, and trust me, it is going to be beyond human comprehension