Preparing for the AI revolution

"So what we would like you to do," said the lady on the other end of the Atlantic video conference, "is to go on stage..."

"Right?" I answered expectantly. 

"...and publically debate 11 Google experts from around the world regarding AI and Machine Learning" she continued.

There was a long pause.

"Of course I will," I said, "it sounds like fun!"

And fun it actually was. 

11 roadshows and panels, 15 hotels and 20 flights. 6 weeks of worldwide travel from the San Francisco bridge to the Sydney bridge. From the stage at the Stockholm Grand Hotel of Nobel Prize fame to the super-cool highrise "workspaces" of Hong Kong. And in each location, a room full of new people to meet, greet, entertain and discuss AI with. In fact, talking with such a diverse cross-section of the AI community; hearing their stories, their issues and dilemmas and thinking of ways to help them out is my idea of fun all right. I learned just as much from their perspectives and wisdom as they from mine, and I feel extremely privileged to have been involved with the whole endeavour. 

What I discovered is this: worldwide everyone is excited about the potential of AI, and everyone knows that this potential needs careful nurturing and attentive management to come to fruition without harming business, workers and customers. 

Everyone wants to get this right. I completely agree. 

Bringing AI into a company is often to first realise that it has already blown in through the door. AI and machine learning are not new. Not at all, and in any significantly large organisation you are bound to find someone somewhere using a bit of machine learning, someone else studying AI coding in their spare time and plenty keen to find out more about this fascinating domain. This is your grassroots and they need nurturing. That is a good and inexpensive place to start because it is these people who can help alleviate the common instinctive fear of AI, both in terms of fear of failure and fear of change. Once you have nurtured this base movement, then you can take the time to assess your entire operation for how "AI Ready" you truly are; by considering your methods, policies, procedures and ethics as much as your data science and coding capacity. This is the "Resource Audit" and a vital step of identifying where you are before you lay out a roadmap to where you want to be. Each stop on the way of that map should build upon the last, revealing growing confidence in your capability to deliver, and ambition to make AI "move your market" be it an internal customer base or products made for public consumption. As you walk this roadmap, the direction of travel, and the lanes and roads you go by, these are the elements of your vision and an expression of your values. That is using AI to speak to the company's true core mission; serving customers. 

In the roadshows, I spoke with a note of caution; of a market in turmoil and forewarned that this "wild west" period offers opportunity and risk in equal measure. However, I also spoke about how to avoid the pitfalls, for surely the first step in avoiding a trap is knowing that it is there? I believe that such traps can be avoided and AI can be a force for good business in this world. I am hopeful for that; but, I am a realist first and foremost because finding the solid ground underneath the hype reveals the foundation upon which we will build the potential for a true AI revolution.

Soon I shall be releasing my talk as an article for those who missed the shows, but until then it remains for me to thank the incredible Google folk who stepped up and offered their vision on the question of our times, "Just how far can the AI revolution go?"

Rich Radley

Ebba Kraemer

Alexander Vo?

Osmond Ng 

Duncan Foster

Leonard Law 

Jean Luc Moisan

Rohit Bha

David Guerrero

Scott Thomson

Dan Johnson

An august group of thinkers, thank you for being a part of the events; I really enjoyed meeting you and hearing your points of view.

**UPDATE**

What do "revolutions" mean in the business and technological world? They are often talked about as being desirable, unstoppable and inevitable. We look to turtle-necked experts to foresee them, to drive them forwards and to change the world for the rest of us. However, if we examine the business revolutions of history, while we find lucrative, if tumultuous, disruption to the "way things are done", we also often find people paying the price.

In this article, a write up of my "sceptics side"' speech from the recent Dow Jones DNA roadshow, I look at the problems in the "Artifical Intelligence Revolution"; the issues and fears threatening it to stall and stumble.

I have always believed that the first step in avoiding any trap is knowing of its existence. Let's examine some of the traps ahead for AI, because only then can we steer this revolution and produce the future we all want from technology: one that enhances and benefits mankind.

The article is now available at Dow Jones: https://bit.ly/2KdJWto

Kind regards,

James