What should we do about AI?

Last year former British Prime Minister Tony Blair referenced artificial intelligence and quantum computing amongst other things in an article about political change. Whatever your political leanings, you know that when a populist politician references a particular technology that it has entered the mainstream.

Inevitably this means that it comes to the attention of business leaders in all sectors, many of which are now asking “what should we do about AI?”

Some years ago, I wrote an ironic piece advising business leaders to trust their own intelligence first, and a quote from that still applies:

Business leaders don't need to occupy their minds with arcane discussions about artificial intelligence, they need to make sure that they use their own natural intelligence to ensure that of the people they employ, whether on staff or an external contractor, are discussing real scenarios with real facts. The ability to discern real from alternatives will be the determining factor in success in the foreseeable future.

As with any strategically significant consideration, the answer to what we should do with AI is simultaneously not simple and very simple.

You can’t really DO anything about it. Major trends will run their course whether we predict them correctly or not. We can’t always see the effect a new technological capability is going to have until it’s been around for a while. There is such a thing as being on the “bleeding edge” and it often pays to hang back and see which way the trend goes before leaping in.

What usually concerns business leaders is the loss of first mover advantage, a form of FOMO where if only we could work out how to use this clever new thing, we might be able to get a jump on our competitors. Of course, there is the counter-factual, too. If we don’t do anything, are we going to be outmaneuvered by the competition?

As our soon-to-be CEO Paul Matthews recently observed on his regular RNZ slot, most AI deployed in business today is relatively “weak” in that it is concerned primarily with automation of existing processes. The AI is trained in a particular task.

As is always the case in the high-tech world, the current “buzz” phrase is applied to whatever companies are offering. Whether it’s the ability to assist you to find the product you want in an online store or products that allow you to enhance your photographs, they are almost always described as “AI-driven” or some similar phrase.

Most uses of AI today are yielding benefits from the vast amounts of digital data now available in a plethora of subject areas, including proprietary corporate databases.

The “four D’s” of AI can help to focus strategic thinking. In this model, AI is suitable for tasks that are Dull (boring for humans), Dangerous, Dirty or Dear (expensive when resourced by humans).

The game-changing possibilities today appear to be in the ability of AI to interpret and alter images. In a TEDx talk in Auckland last year, we heard a fascinating story about how an AI designed to detect cancerous tumours in X-ray images had accurately identified an early-stage tumour in an X-Ray taken a decade earlier for the purpose of examining the patient's heart. The human radiologist did not see the tumour (since they weren’t focused on looking for one, and it was hard to spot).

The unique thing about an AI is they cannot get bored or tired and they do certain things at speeds far greater than a human, such as minutely scanning an image that can save someone’s life.

Perhaps the true potential of AI lies in the ability to enhance the intelligence of humans. As the TEDx speaker put it, “AI will not replace doctors, but doctors who use AI will replace doctors who don’t”.

This is paraphrasing the words of Erik Brynjolfsson the Director of the Stamford Digital Economy Lab and one of the foremost commentators on the economics of digital technologies in the last two decades. He said “AI won’t replace managers, but managers who use AI will replace those who don’t.”

You could replace “AI” in the above statement with almost any disruptive technology and it still works, proving AI is a vital asset to be considered in your digital strategy.

For those that want to know more, Brynjolfsson’s recent paper on the subject is a fascinating read, especially if you enjoyed Benedict Cumberbatch’s portrayal of Alan Turing in The Imitation Game.

Ready to chat about digital? Setup a call with Ray to discuss your digital strategy.

Ray Delany is the Founder of CIO Studio, a company built to partner with SMEs and help them solve the “strategy” problem and align their digital investment with their business outcomes.

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