Goodbye, AI. Hello, AI.

A year ago the world stood on the cusp of a new era, the era of artificial intelligence or AI.

Microsoft declared that 2018 would be the ‘Year of AI’ and that mass adoption of AI tools would soon “benefit economies and societies in a fair, transparent and trusted way”. Media outlets concurred, with one arguing that “humanity has entered into a new era” thanks to AI, and one columnist speculating that “the impact of AI permeate into almost every job”.

As for me, I was a little less enamoured by the possibilities for AI in 2018. As I told Forbes at the time:

If 2017 was the year where the warnings from Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking about the potential evil from AI clashed with predictions from Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates on its potential good, 2018 will be the year when the debate shifts to its practical utility. Much like other technologies that were lauded for their world-changing potential and then fizzled as the fog of the hype cleared, early adopters will find themselves disappointed by AI’s obvious limits. The broader public—familiar with Alexa, Siri and Google Home—will be similarly disillusioned as the experts acknowledge that there is only so much that AI will be able to do, and for really complex problems, a new paradigm will be needed.

I remain convinced now, as I was then, that the distance between what we think AI should be able to do and what it actually can do is vast. While we have seen advances in consumer applications of artificial intelligence, data analysis, and machine learning, there is a wide and discernible gap between a virtual assistant on a cell phone recite a weather forecast and true, general, artificial intelligence.

What we have in today’s cutting-edge AI is largely pattern recognition. Our technologies can recognize patterns, connect tables of information, and report back to a human user many times faster than that human could do the same. Whether it is organizing images, classifying loan applicants, delivering real-time traffic information, or even reminding you to collect your dry cleaning on the way home from work, our AI tools remain, at their core, super fast-processing pattern recognition technologies.

And that’s why, in 2019, I’d like to say ‘goodbye’ to predictions of a ubiquitous, world-changing, transformational-as-all-get-out AI and, instead, offer a clear, hearty ‘hello’ and ‘welcome’ to AI.

And, no, I’m not confused!

AI—artificial intelligence—remains hyped beyond what it deserves, it still languishes in development even after half a century of research.

The AI I am talking about - Augmented Intelligence - is the technology that will begin to come of age in 2019 and that I believe will, in short order, drive fundamental transformations in business and across in our societies.

As the name suggests, augmented intelligence is not about replacing human intelligence but adding to it. Instead of a focus on removing humans from a decision making equation the focus is on providing humans with more and better information on which to base their decisions. Through modeling and simulating the most complex of systems, by merging technological breakthroughs and institutional knowledge, and by connecting human intelligence with machine learning and artificial intelligence, this ‘other AI’ has the capacity to truly transform how we work and how we live.

Some of those transformations can already be evidenced in the work that my team at Cosmo Tech has done to help some of Europe’s largest businesses make better decisions. Productivity rates have gone up, expenditures have gone down, and investments have been optimized all while service levels are maintained or even improved.

But my pride in what augmented intelligence has already helped to achieve is matched by the excitement I feel about what is to come.

In 2019 Cosmo Tech will be supporting the development of a new software solution that will aim to reduce the impact of a problem that affect millions of ordinary people, citizens of rich and poor countries alike.

I believe we have the potential to positively impact thousands of lives and save communities billions of dollars by applying Augmented Intelligence to their challenges.

And that’s why I’m starting this New Year enthused and motivated to work with Cosmo Tech to deliver this Augmented Intelligence—the AI of 2019—to the world.