Mary Meeker, world famous tech analyst, has published 340 pages of incredible detail on the AI sector but it left me wondering who is really benefiting from this exponential growth?
An excellent overview of where we are today. However, I'd like to offer a different perspective on the industry's future.
AI models have been trained on 1000 years of human activity. That's one reason for their high performance and speed of customer adoption. However, five years from now they will be learning mainly from other AI models, not from people. A self-reinforcing vortex of hallucinations and uncorrected errors (garbage in, garbage out) will grow at an exponential rate.
I'm not sure how this can be avoided or how damaging this would be. We might witness a rapid decline in some (or even most) AI applications. Public confidence will be lost as the benefits predicted today fail to materialise.
I'd like to hear how the industry believes it can prevent this from happening.
I'm certainly not afraid of AI. Indeed, I was one of its earliest commercial advocates, back in 1995, but I'm already starting to doubt its efficacy as a serious work tool in many fields.
What we need is some tailored experimentation. If only there was a charity or think tank that could put together an interdisciplinary team of data scientists, OD specialists, systems thinkers, to go into a medium sized town, say something like Halifax or Hastings, or Blackpool where they would work systemically to help the Towns to understand, implement and learn how to use AI tools and data effectively. Rather than aiming for wholesale change, aiming for incremental change, but those 1%'s add up. As a shift is made and (hopefully) benefits are leveraged, then the learning can be offered to other towns.
Why a smaller town? Because we are talking about systemic change, and it's easier to gather evidence in a smaller system, rather than a major city like Leeds, or Birmingham, or Brighton. A smaller town will also allow for hopefully faster gains, so lessons learned can be brought in more quickly. The aim is learning and refinement. Likewise it's not about rolling out a programme, as Central Government does, rather learning would be offered through workshops, shadowing, OD interventions, so that other cities can understand and then see what would work for them. After a certain periods the team of specialists would roll into a new town to help them.
Such an organisation probably already exists, if not, then perhaps some inspired leader will think this a good idea and start the ball rolling. :-)
Absolutely agree on governance point. Europe and UK have to determine the model that works for their world view and sensibilities on privacy and social fabric, and quickly. Waiting on a US version to import is a poor option.
This is so well said but i still dont understand the jobs market. Demis hassabis said this week everyone needs a stem education - but where does that leave arts and creative industries? Should all arts ed be blended with stem? And how will our health, care, education and civil service industries be disrupted? What are the future jobs? everyone says massive change is coming but i havent heard an articulate version of what that will look like
Tiffanie, I stand by the anti-Luddite argument that the overall number of jobs will remain fairly stable. This is because the economic stimulus caused by any new technology (in this case AI) generates new types of jobs and commercial opportunities. It will also raise tax revenues which can be used for targeted public spending.
It's true that many sectors will shrink and some careers could disappear altogether, but these will be balanced by new and hitherto unimaginable ways of working and living.
All change brings winners and losers. Expect the latter to attract the most attention and sympathy, but I would urge everyone to look at the bigger picture.
Of course, this assumes that AI will be the giant economic shake-up that its advocates promise, but I don't think it will be quite so dramatic over the longer term.
Suffice to say, technologies can't be reversed, so try to embrace AI if you can.
An excellent overview of where we are today. However, I'd like to offer a different perspective on the industry's future.
AI models have been trained on 1000 years of human activity. That's one reason for their high performance and speed of customer adoption. However, five years from now they will be learning mainly from other AI models, not from people. A self-reinforcing vortex of hallucinations and uncorrected errors (garbage in, garbage out) will grow at an exponential rate.
I'm not sure how this can be avoided or how damaging this would be. We might witness a rapid decline in some (or even most) AI applications. Public confidence will be lost as the benefits predicted today fail to materialise.
I'd like to hear how the industry believes it can prevent this from happening.
I'm certainly not afraid of AI. Indeed, I was one of its earliest commercial advocates, back in 1995, but I'm already starting to doubt its efficacy as a serious work tool in many fields.
We are in sync - i even pitched this idea to someone !
What we need is some tailored experimentation. If only there was a charity or think tank that could put together an interdisciplinary team of data scientists, OD specialists, systems thinkers, to go into a medium sized town, say something like Halifax or Hastings, or Blackpool where they would work systemically to help the Towns to understand, implement and learn how to use AI tools and data effectively. Rather than aiming for wholesale change, aiming for incremental change, but those 1%'s add up. As a shift is made and (hopefully) benefits are leveraged, then the learning can be offered to other towns.
Why a smaller town? Because we are talking about systemic change, and it's easier to gather evidence in a smaller system, rather than a major city like Leeds, or Birmingham, or Brighton. A smaller town will also allow for hopefully faster gains, so lessons learned can be brought in more quickly. The aim is learning and refinement. Likewise it's not about rolling out a programme, as Central Government does, rather learning would be offered through workshops, shadowing, OD interventions, so that other cities can understand and then see what would work for them. After a certain periods the team of specialists would roll into a new town to help them.
Such an organisation probably already exists, if not, then perhaps some inspired leader will think this a good idea and start the ball rolling. :-)
Absolutely agree on governance point. Europe and UK have to determine the model that works for their world view and sensibilities on privacy and social fabric, and quickly. Waiting on a US version to import is a poor option.
20 years ago the UK led in AI research. Now we have missed ‘the arrival of the AI moment’. Companies, governments and people need to lean in.
This is so well said but i still dont understand the jobs market. Demis hassabis said this week everyone needs a stem education - but where does that leave arts and creative industries? Should all arts ed be blended with stem? And how will our health, care, education and civil service industries be disrupted? What are the future jobs? everyone says massive change is coming but i havent heard an articulate version of what that will look like
I really don’t think we know - critical thinking, curiosity they are important
Tiffanie, I stand by the anti-Luddite argument that the overall number of jobs will remain fairly stable. This is because the economic stimulus caused by any new technology (in this case AI) generates new types of jobs and commercial opportunities. It will also raise tax revenues which can be used for targeted public spending.
It's true that many sectors will shrink and some careers could disappear altogether, but these will be balanced by new and hitherto unimaginable ways of working and living.
All change brings winners and losers. Expect the latter to attract the most attention and sympathy, but I would urge everyone to look at the bigger picture.
Of course, this assumes that AI will be the giant economic shake-up that its advocates promise, but I don't think it will be quite so dramatic over the longer term.
Suffice to say, technologies can't be reversed, so try to embrace AI if you can.