All of a sudden, AI is everywhere we look. Since the release of ChatGPT about this time last year, the use of AI has exploded. It seems remarkable that Meta hasn't yet rebranded to Meta AI or that supermarkets aren't telling us that AI helped pick the fruit and vegetables on the shelf, although I've been told Ocado does something like this.
Every industry is talking about the technology almost as if creating a solution that doesn't harness AI in some capacity is the wrong approach. This blanket approach to technology and chasing to be involved in a buzzword potentially damages business.
I might be doing AI a disservice by calling it a buzzword. It is the most fantasmical thing ever and will change humanity.
AI can help solve a plethora of problems. We create tools for our clients, from bespoke chatbots that harness large language models and learning to more complicated projects requiring AI solutions to change a business's approach to a problem. We are running an amazing project at the moment harnessing cutting edge Vision AI to help decarbonize the UK by enabling the electrification of heat.
But as great as AI can be, it doesn't solve every problem and should not be used as a golden hammer and certainly businesses should not sell solutions with marketing touting AI, when in all reality it's a basic logic algorithm.
The fundamental current limitation of AI lies in its inability to possess a proper human-like understanding, it is only as good as the data it is trained on. We have all seen the stories of AI reading Twitter and becoming racist or the bias against women that was demonstrated by Amazon's recruiting tool and the possibility of a model collapse has already been demonstrated by Grok.
Our ancestors didn't put a wheel on everything, and we don't need to put AI into every program and business application either! Tech trends always seem to make businesses get carried away. Last year, we had some of the biggest companies in the world spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on digital real estate in the metaverse. As the founder of a digital agency, I have seen countless trends come and go. AI is a trend, but also a quantum leap in how we interact with digital that is undoubtedly here to stay, and I suspect will become a non subject as people use more tools with it integrated, but there might always be better or simpler solutions, the choice between the red and the blue pill is critical for business. The collective power of human thinking will always bring the best solutions to your problem. Before jumping on the AI bandwagon, talk to other experts and see what they think, it might be a good fit or there might be a different solution.
Update.....just read an article on an AI model trained to create other AI models and the FunSearch project that solves math problems by writing code. "Life moves pretty fast and if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it"
First published on LinkedIn on 17 December 2023.
