Artificial intelligence
When the world discovered the Internet in the 1990s, many professionals were unsure whether it was friend or foe. Today, the same is true with the emergence of artificial intelligence solutions.
It is clear that AI is going nowhere, despite warnings that we need a temporary moratorium on AI. AI is rapidly evolving and changing the economic and social landscape. Without thoughtful approaches, we risk finding ourselves in a mess of our own making.
Yet, it can be difficult to know where to start. Every day there seem to be new developments in AI. We cannot afford to ignore the adoption of AI. At the same time, we cannot afford to leave everything to chance; we have to be strategic.
Navigating the Evolution of AI
I turned to a few leaders who use AI for guidance in the field. Interestingly, all three leaders and founders I interviewed acknowledged similar concerns about the challenges of AI as well as hope for a future underpinned by the best promise of AI.
For example, ethics was a common thread. Perhaps AI products should come with general caveats: privacy is not something that AI masters. AI products like ChatGPT require ridiculously large datasets to keep learning. However, products cannot tell if a use case is ethical without some sort of boundary in place.
Like ethics, bias is another issue with AI. While studying an AI image generation program, Bloomberg researchers discovered that the images were grossly biased and trained on biased data. When asked to produce images of doctors, only 7% of those images were of women, even though real-world data suggests women make up 39% of doctors.
All this shows that the AI is not perfect. However, it is not darkness that descends on humanity. On the contrary, many AI programs offer organizations tremendous opportunities, such as increased productivity and increased creativity. Workers can finally free themselves from repetitive tasks and begin to explore their creative and innovative talents.
This is not terrible news. This points to a future where people can unleash more brain power and where exhausted managers and employees can focus on tasks that give them meaning. But for that to happen, companies need to be strategic. Here are three ways to engage with AI according to industry experts.
1. Take a forward-thinking approach.
Subha Tatavarti, Chief Technology Officer at Wipro, wants leaders to drive the development of AI within their organizations. Rather than watch and wait, she recommends implementing strategies that drive the internal course of AI. This way, as AI evolves and advances, companies that have taken a leading approach can harness the best aspects of the technology: productivity, revenue, and innovation gains.
“For CTOs to understand how to use AI to innovate and grow their organizations, it’s crucial to spark creativity and simplify the business down to its core,” she says. “CTOs need to focus on the core of their business and then consider how the team can use AI to improve those fundamental blocks. The art of being a CTO is finding the right problem to focus on. Once you have that, you can use your creativity to find the right technology to overcome this problem.
Tatavarti and his company have set up an AI council. The council works to strengthen standards for the development and use of AI, establish ethical guidelines to mitigate biased algorithms, ensure fairness, and prevent discriminatory outcomes. Wipro has also engaged with several leading companies in a wide variety of industries to develop centers of excellence by leveraging their consulting expertise and fundamental research knowledge through academic partnerships. The measures that Tatavarti focuses on – regular audits, employee training, etc. – should enable AI capabilities to unfold in ways that improve humanity.
2. Start small and content.
Not a day goes by that Diana Bald, president of Blue Orange Digital, doesn’t use AI for something. Design employee and customer onboarding plans. Development of agendas for meetings and workshops. Create job descriptions and customize career development programs. AI touches virtually every element of what it does, and it’s always looking for new ways to harness AI models.
“AI expands the capabilities of data science,” says Bald. “Able to analyze large data sets, AI allows us to perform more complex types of data analysis, including natural language processing, image recognition and deep learning (a form of AI that mimics the human brain). AI excels at managing unstructured data (such as images and voice) and extracting meaningful insights, tasks that were previously difficult or time-consuming. »
However, she doesn’t think businesses should jump in all at once. Bald reports that solutions architects, data scientists and engineers at Blue Orange Digital start with pilot projects. The “start small” mindset allows the team to test, learn, and iterate on AI-based technologies before scaling up. When pilots show promise, Bald gives the go-ahead to phase-in AI across all company operations. This ensures a seamless transition and slow, controlled familiarization of AI between everyone in the company.
Once people understand the fundamentals of using AI, they are encouraged to find optimal use cases and models for specific tasks. All of this is done in an environment that is already invested in cybersecurity. For leaders who don’t yet know where AI belongs in their ecosystem, Bald suggests starting by automating routine tasks or adding chatbots rather than jumping head-first into AI-enhanced customer behavior prediction. ‘AI, the discovery of internal talents or the optimization of logistics.
3. Approach innovations with curiosity.
Caution is always advised when evaluating new technology. At the same time, Michael Scharff, CEO and co-founder of Evolv AI, doesn’t want executives to lose their curiosity about AI innovations. He sees time and time again that those who work in harmony with AI, while proceeding at a speed they can handle, come out on top.
“Brands and companies that adopt AI for experimentation and testing will have a greater competitive advantage,” Scharff says. “Experimenting with generative AI is essential now. As when the internet disrupted a wide range of industries in the early 2000s, the AI revolution is forcing businesses to adapt or be left behind Chances are your employees are already using generative AI at work, be curious and see what happens.
What does curiosity look like from a practical point of view? For Evolv AI, this means constant experimentation with customer experience. Scharff and his team frequently rely on AI to organize meeting notes and agendas, efficiently customize content, and write complex code for variations they want to present to potential customers.
By asking questions about AI, leaders can unravel the mystery. This encourages everyone to continue the conversation and share their thoughts and solutions.
AI is embedding itself in businesses and in the fabric of society in general. Is this reality somewhat intimidating? Yes. Nevertheless, companies cannot pretend that it does not exist. Now may be the best time to lead an industry.