Donal Daly

Tomorrow | Today 2016 Donal Daly

The facts are clear: 1. AI is impacting your personal and professional life today, and the impact will only increase in the short and medium term. 2. AI is replacing jobs at a rate that is materially significant and cannot be ignored. AI is moving from consumer- or task-based utility, to applications that are more knowledge-worker focused - though there are still many application areas that are beyond the capability of the machines. 3. AI is getter smarter. (Most of the time we don't notice.) 4. All AI systems need to be taught about the domain to which they are being applied. This is a critical, but often overlooked, aspect of AI. 5. The harvest from AI systems is dependent on the bias of those who plant the seeds or nourish the crop. 6. Most of the effective AI systems in use today are dependent on ginormous datasets. 7. Big Data works when you truly have big data, but only when you know the big questions. Small data matters too and that fact is particularly relevant to knowledge workers today. 8. (AI + Humans) is greater than the sum of the parts. Knowledge remains a core differentiator for knowledge workers. A
I is just the next step in automation - though it is a very significant step. The efficacy of any project will be dependent not just on technology or technical feasibility. The costs of the project, the value of the work, the scarcity or otherwise of the skills needed will all need to be considered. In the context of knowledge work, you will get greater return from investing in the humans - augmenting the knowledge worker with Augmented Intelligence - rather than delegating the thinking to the machine. After all, knowledge workers think for a living, and we will benefit by making that thinking more informed. Our most distinguishing attributes are our consciousness and intelligence, our capacity for empathy and creativity, free will and moral choices. This is a very exciting time, replete with new possibilities and opportunity, but we must all be the conscious and deliberate authors of our own future. That is true today and it will be true tomorrow.