By David Espindola
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is arguably the most transformative technology humankind has ever developed. This journey is just beginning, but we are already seeing an enormous impact across industries, from healthcare to financial services to manufacturing. KPMG estimates that corporate investments in AI will surpass $232 billion annually by 2025, and current annual investments in startups developing innovative AI applications exceed $50 billion.
The advancement of AI went through a few stages of hyperbolic over-expectations and subsequent “AI winters,” from the 1950s onwards. But once three key vectors — algorithmic advancement, computational capacity, and data explosion — started to converge, we had the key ingredients for AI to take off.
In 1997, IBM Deep Blue defeated Gary Kasparov, the then World Chess Champion. In 2011, IBM Watson defeated Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings the Jeopardy! champions. In 2017, Google DeepMind defeated Ke Jie, the best Go player in the world. It was at this time that a seminal paper titled “Attention Is All You Need” was published by Google researchers, resulting in the development of Generative AI. From this point forward, AI’s capabilities improved rapidly, culminating in the advent of ChatGPT in 2022, the application that made AI easily accessible to the masses.
Today, AI is being adopted at extraordinary rates in many corporate functions, and the high expectations for cost reduction and revenue increase are turning AI into a strategic discussion in many boardrooms across the globe. According to a survey by McKinsey & Company in 2022, over half of the Supply Chain executives expect AI to reduce costs by at least 10% and possibly more. Most Sales and Marketing executives expect a revenue increase of at least 5% due to AI. Operations executives leverage AI to automate customer service, personalize recommendations, and optimize deliveries. HR executives use AI to improve recruiting and training. Researchers and engineers utilize AI to perform experiments and stay up to speed on the numerous scientific discoveries published daily. Across the enterprise, every single function is impacted by this powerful technology’s broad reach.
But it is not all good news. Numerous ethical concerns are being raised, ranging from privacy to biases to questions about who is responsible when AI decisions have negative consequences. What happens when the AI decision cannot be explained? This issue is known as the Black Box problem. Some AI experts are even issuing warnings about a potential AI takeover that could result in the extermination of humanity, even though this is debatable and opinions vary widely.
Regulators need to strike a careful balance, given the potential impact on a wide range of societal issues, from the economy to military dominance. Overregulate and you could miss benefits as far-reaching as finding cures for deadly diseases like cancer. Underregulate, and you could face multiple risks, such as the onset of powerful AI-based oligarchies, biased decisions, invasion of privacy, and an out-of-control arms race with dire consequences.
Technology is neither good nor bad. It is simply a tool that humans have used throughout history to help us better deal with life’s demands. We now have the most powerful technology we have ever invented. If we manage it well, we could create a world of sustainable abundance unlike any we have ever seen. If we don’t, we could create a dystopian society. The stakes could not be higher.
Digging Deeper:
- Mascellino, A. 2023. “Global AI investments to top £150 billion by 2025.” Outside Insight. https://outsideinsight.com/insights/global-ai-investment-150-billion-2025/
- GlobalData. March 13, 2023. “Artificial Intelligence startups raise over $50 billion venture capital funding in 2023, reveals GlobalData.” https://www.globaldata.com/media/business-fundamentals/artificial-intelligence-startups-raise-over-50-billion-venture-capital-funding-in-2022-reveals-globaldata/
- Vaswani A., et all. June 12, 2017. “Attention Is All You Need.” https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2017/file/3f5ee243547dee91fbd053c1c4a845aa-Paper.pdf
- McKinsey & Company. December 6, 2022. “The state of AI in 2022 – and a half decade I review.” https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai-in-2022-and-a-half-decade-in-review
About the Author
David Espindola is an entrepreneur, futurist, speaker, author, and advisor to business, nonprofits, and academia. He is the author of “Soulful: You in the Future of Artificial Intelligence” and “The Exponential Era.” You can learn more at DavidEspindola.com.
