5 common misconceptions about AI

Artificial intelligence has enormous potential to revolutionize our personal and professional lives. While AI has been around for a while, OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT in late 2022 got everyone talking about the technology and ramped up interest in conversational AI and generative AI. Since then, you’ve probably heard plenty of speculation about what AI can and can’t accomplish and what its continued advancement means for the future of humanity.

As with any hot topic, you can’t believe everything you hear about artificial intelligence. To help you make well-informed technology decisions for your business, here’s a rundown of some of the most common misconceptions about AI, according to industry experts and our technology consultants.

1. AI can completely take over for human workers.

While artificial intelligence can take over basic and repetitive processes (e.g., data entry), it doesn’t have the cognitive capabilities at the moment to take over many professional tasks, according to the Spiceworks article, “10 Most Common Myths About AI.” For example, while large language models like ChatGPT can create content, they still need prompts and human editors since the AI can “hallucinate” and fabricate details and sources.

2. AI tools are always accurate and objective.

AI tools – like the humans who created them – have biases. Additionally, generative AI can and will produce plausible-sounding but false answers in response to prompts, according to the Google Cloud blog entry, “The Prompt: Debunking five generative AI misconceptions.”

It’s wise and necessary to fact-check everything ChatGPT and other AI tools tell you. Otherwise, you could end up like the lawyers who had to explain to an unamused judge why they submitted an AI-created court filing that referenced fictional past cases, according to the Associated Press.

3. Only large enterprises can benefit from AI.

Artificial intelligence isn’t just for large corporations. In fact, since one of the top reasons to deploy AI is to save time by automating basic and mundane tasks, it’s particularly useful for smaller companies that are short-staffed and looking to increase productivity while keeping costs down. For more information, check out our previous blog entry, “5 tips for small business leaders interested in generative AI.”

4. AI models trained on larger data sets are better.

The quality and type of data matters more than the quantity, according to Spiceworks. To maximize your AI ROI, you want solutions trained on information that is accurate, properly formatted, and relevant to your business. Human workers must properly label any data to ensure AI can read it.

5. Artificial intelligence can learn on its own.

While solutions with machine learning capabilities can modify their responses based on previous interactions, they still need human data scientists to select and prepare training data and update the software, according to the Gartner article, “6 AI Myths Debunked.”

Our consultants can assist you if you’d like to explore AI solutions for your business. With more than 20 years of experience in IT and access to exclusive research and detailed comparison matrices, we can streamline the purchasing process and help you efficiently identify products that align with your needs and goals.

Start your transformation today by calling?877-599-3999?or emailing [email protected].