The Next Industrial Revolution is Coming: The Artificial Intelligence Revolution
In the whirlwind of a year that has been 2016, the rise of potentially the next great inflection point in human innovation has flown under the radar. Artificial intelligence, commonly referred to as “AI” has the potential to completely reshape the world as we know it in the not too distant future. The possibilities of a smarter world driven by AI are endless, but before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s take a quick look into the impact that AI will have on our economies. And it’s tremendous.
According to research from Accenture, artificial intelligence could double economic growth rates in developed countries by 2035. To put things into perspective, the Federal Reserve, headed by Fed Chair Janet Yellen, projects future GDP growth around 2.0-3.0% year over year. The US government or frankly the entire world would do anything to stimulate economic growth right now.
The point is, if a technological innovation like AI can achieve something so elusive as very strong economic growth, we need to start paying attention.
The future US economy is transitioning from its glory days with the industrial revolution to the next “revolution” that will be driven by technological innovations in all sectors of the economy with a strong foundation of artificial intelligence.
Vice President of Automotives at NVIDIA, Rob Csongor, said at CES 2017 “It’s not an exaggeration when we talk about artificial intelligence as the technology that will spark an industrial revolution.”
The country to be the leader in AI will be setting their nation up for decades upon decades of economic prosperity in addition to improving the lives of its citizens.
The early 19th century industrial revolution was driven in part by the invention of artificial power. Energy was made accessible from distribution through grids. Factories could now easily harness 250 horsepower with a touch of a button. The new revolution based on artificial intelligence is distributed via the cloud. Now all these powerful machines/devices we have created from the industrial revolution will be enhanced with a brain of their own and the impact will be tremendous.
If you don’t yet understand how AI can impact everything from life-changing medical developments to our daily lives, read on because we are truly on the cusp of the next great technological revolution.
When computers learn how to think on their own instead of relying on preset algorithms, this will lead to the technological inflection point Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, often speaks of. Here are three examples of ways AI will reinvent industry after industry.
Transportation has been a hot topic at this year’s CES. Faraday Future has revealed the FF91 AI enabled, electrical vehicle, NVIDIA and Audi have teamed up to show a driverless car that was trained by AI in less than 4 days, and Intel and BMW have announced they will be bringing a fleet of self-driving cars to the road by the end of THIS year. By getting humans away from the wheel, traffic will diminish substantially, hundreds of thousands of lives will be saved every year, and productivity of long commuters will sky rocket as riders can either sleep or work while in the car all while being 100% safe. Not only will this re-invent the automobile industry, but it will also lead to a more efficient and productive society.
Every year, we spend billions and billions of dollars on medical research. With such investments, we have made great progress in finding new, life-saving treatments and surgical advances. Imagine the rate at which research will be advanced once AI, working all day, every day, got its hands on data to go through. It could test any hypothesis or even create one itself. Could this be the time in human history when we finally put an end to all disease? This may sound crazy, but Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla, want to do just that with their foundation, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative. And the way they will end up doing so will be with the help of supercomputers and artificial intelligence.
A third industry AI could reimagine is not really even an industry. We’re talking about everyday life. We are getting our first glimpse what having an AI assistant could be like from Amazon’s Alexa and the Google Home. By having a personal assistant on us at all times, this could open up opportunities everywhere. AI will be helping you in daily tasks and situations you didn’t even know you needed help with! Your AI assistant could help you shop, communicate with friends, family or coworkers without having to stare down at a keyboard, or really just about anything else you can think of.
Here at SammurAI, we are particularly excited for the integration of artificial intelligence into customer service applications. AI will soon be your personal sales assistant ready to help you make smarter purchasing decisions. Unlike salespeople, your AI assistant will get to know you and be able to provide personalized feedback and recommendations.
This could be useful when you are, for example, deciding which TV to buy at Best Buy store. Your AI sales assistant will provide you with all the information you need such as user reviews, relevant promotions, and in turn, contextualized recommendations to help you get the best TV for YOU and not just a best-selling model.
With almost anything you can think of, artificial intelligence has the potential to help. That’s the beauty of AI - its use case is limitless and once AI technology reaches a certain threshold of capability that comes closer and closer to human consciousness, which is closer than you might think, be prepared for a revolutionary time in human history.