The future of... Artificial intelligence

Alec Joannou’s tips for the next big things in artificial intelligence

ChatGPT

The new chatbot developed by OpenAI, a natural language processor that is trained to use “neural network architecture” to generate responses from existing data.

Predictive maintenance (PdM)

PdM uses data analysis tools and techniques to detect anomalies in operations both in the workplace and in the home – look out for your fridge telling you when it’s starting to fail.

Digital twins

Virtual replicas of everything, enabling companies to experiment hypothetically with different production capabilities and thus offer total confidence they will work when applied for real.

Alec Joannou, a current parent and CIO of global digital technology company ABB, says we must embrace the unique opportunities AI can offer us.

What is the biggest benefit we’ll see from artificial intelligence? There are many, of course, but the one I think will ultimately have the greatest impact will be to make us truly value human intelligence.

AI has created probably the single biggest change since the industrial revolution, and there are similarities. It is offering so many laboursaving solutions, and its critics, like those in the mid-19th century, are lamenting the number of jobs that will vanish. Unlike the industrial revolution, AI is impacting office jobs along with factory ones, but it’s creating millions of other opportunities in different areas, creating roles that require us to think and act differently.

For example, the AI process of robotic process automation – RPA –delivers menial tasks such as paying a vendor. Previously you’d open the delivery note, make sure you had the right item, prove the payment matched up and reconcile what was promised with what arrived. But RPA can do all that for you – and that frees up the human who was doing it to make more technical and strategic decisions about the how, why and when of payment, and perhaps negotiating a better deal.

AI lives on data, and by analysing all that on our behalf, it frees us all up to think more creatively and start to use, or rediscover, those human skills and qualities that differentiate us from robots – attributes such as emotional intelligence, empathy and nuanced communication. When AI does mundane tasks better than we do, we will value the things we can do but it can’t.

AI has been in our homes for years – think Siri, Alexa, the Rhoomba – and this technology is developing at an astonishing rate. And because the tech is evolving so quickly, it’s imperative that we continue to embrace it. Twenty years ago people thought the mobile phone might change the way we work because you would be able to make a call anywhere – no-one was prepared for the smartphone and apps, and just how quickly they would completely revolutionise every aspect of our lives. In the near future, map apps, for example, won’t just tell you how to get somewhere, or even where the hold-ups are, but give you detailed weather information so you know what to wear when you arrive. There will be those concerned by the challenges of AI and how much it is changing everything. But just as happened with the industrial revolution, it is taking us forwards, not backwards. We all need to embrace the technology – and celebrate the unique opportunities it brings us to be human. Z

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