AI Demystified: Essential Concepts for Business Leaders
In my previous post, I discussed how artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to disrupt the status quo in the business world. As you prepare yourself, your staff, and your business for the AI revolution, it's crucial to grasp the basics of AI and its evolving capabilities. In this post, I aim to provide an overview with minimal technical jargon.
Why should business leaders understand AI?
Many of us associate artificial intelligence with sci-fi movie robots like Star Wars' C-3PO or machines that pose a threat to humanity. However, AI is already enhancing our lives in many positive ways.
We interact with AI every day, often without realizing it. Google employs AI in its search algorithms to better understand search queries and deliver relevant results. Voice assistants like Siri and Google Assistant use AI for natural language understanding. And when Facebook auto-tags friends in uploaded photos, AI is responsible for matching faces with names.
Described by AI expert Andrew Ng as a general-purpose technology like electricity, AI is poised to impact every aspect of your business and society.
To successfully integrate AI across the enterprise, business leaders must understand its underlying principles to effectively drive the transformation.
Artificial intelligence is a science and a collection of technologies that draw inspiration from human perception, learning, and decision-making processes. While AI operates differently from our own cognitive abilities, it has been an area of active research for over 60 years. You have likely been interacting with AI, either knowingly or unknowingly, for quite some time.
With ChatGPT's rapid rise in popularity, you may have come across terms like "generative AI." So let's explore some basic definitions. AI can be categorized in several ways, but one of the most common is by its capabilities:
Today, all AI systems we engage with are classified as Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) or Weak AI.
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While the term "Weak AI" (or ANI) may seem to imply limitations, these models are highly proficient at efficiently and accurately executing a wide array of specific tasks typically performed by knowledge workers. Additionally, they can accomplish these tasks in a fraction of the time and cost, while maintaining remarkable accuracy.
Some notable narrow AI models that are driving AI mainstream and transforming industries today include:
Generative AI refers to models that can create new content, such as text, images, music, or other types of data. It falls under the category of ANI or Weak AI. Generative AI models like ChatGPT are trained on large datasets. They use patterns learned to generate original content.
Neural networks are AI models inspired by the functioning of human neurons in the brain. These models comprise interconnected nodes organized in layered structures, designed to learn and recognize complex, nonlinear patterns between input and output data.
Deep learning primarily uses neural networks, and the term "deep" refers to the many layers within the neural network that enable it to identify abstract patterns and features in data.
Large Language Models (LLMs) are a specialized category of large neural networks, focusing on language processing tasks and benefiting from advancements in deep learning techniques.
LLMs are trained on vast amounts of data, and pre-trained models like GPT-3 can be fine-tuned for specific tasks.
Grasping key AI concepts is crucial for business leaders since AI will transform the way enterprises create and capture value. This change affects both business models and operations, and without a clear understanding of AI, navigating your organization through the AI revolution becomes exceedingly difficult.
In my next post, I'll explore some AI applications to spark your creativity and help you start envisioning where you can begin integrating AI into your business.
To further your understanding consider this course AI for Everyone by Andrew Ng.