Jeremy Kaplan, Editor-in-Chief of Digital Trends, opined that “it seems that AI is both still in its infancy and has permeated the entire world at the same time,” speaking during a panel at CES 2021.
Even though the development of machine learning and predictive models is progressing at speed, what has been accomplished with AI so far is still considered the tip of the iceberg.
“We look at AI as a way to improve essentially three things: Predictions, automation, and optimisation,” explained Bridget Karlin, Global Managing Director, CTO and VP at IBM during the same panel.
According to her, what researchers are trying to do now is improve AI’s capacity to predict outcomes, trigger automated actions to achieve zero human touch, and optimise processes for performance, cost, or enhancing an experience.
“[The state of AI today] is just the tip of the iceberg because just now we are harnessing the vast amount of data we have access to. We are leveraging huge events-missing software, and we are also leveraging the increasing power of computing,” she added.
One shortcoming today is that artificial intelligence technology does not cope well with unexpected or new data in order to refine a prediction. On the other hand, in certain areas, AI is already playing a significant role in society.
“What we have tackled well are more objective things, like nudity, violence, drugs, hate speech, things there are objectively right or wrong,” affirmed Kevin Guo, CEO of Hive AI.
Still, in his opinion, it will take time until researchers create AI models that will become an integral part of our daily lives. “I think the time horizon will likely be in the order of several decades before we see AI really permeate all the aspects of life that we think it could,” he predicted.
By then Eric Cornelius, Chief Product Architect at BlackBerry, expects the power of artificial intelligence will have grown enough to enable humans to make discoveries and develop at a much faster pace.
“AI will allow us to perform analytics much more quickly. If we get a lunar sample from some ambitious space project, we will be able to do the chemical analytics on that at a far higher pace than we would [in the past]. So that will empower humans to take such examples to human levels,” he said. “AI will be there to supplement human ambition.”
