Work.Life.Ai - Week Ending 10.18.19
There are so many conversations happening around artificial intelligence right now that if you are new to the subject, it might not be clear that these technologies are not just one thing, but really a collection of techniques. The research, as Kathleen Walch discusses, shows that the application of artificial intelligence technology right now will fall into one or more of seven common patterns.
Those seven patterns are listed below (Source is Cognilytica ) along with a contemporary example that most of us might encounter as we go about our daily lives.
Hyper-personalization (Zappos serves you up a pair of shoes based on your previous purchases)
Autonomous systems (unmanned vehicles such as driverless cars or drones)
Predictive analytics and decision support (using big data to help make decisions and predictions)
Conversational/human interactions (Siri, Alexa, Cortana etc.)
Patterns and anomalies (genetic research, fraud detection)
Recognition systems (facial recognition used in security)
Goal driven systems (games, IBM Watson playing Jeopardy)
This week’s series of interesting articles about the expanding use of artificial intelligence in our lives, covers a cross section of industry sectors. I have left my own comments out of the snippets, but have added the source of the article for your further consideration.
Two questions for considerations as you read articles on AI are:
Which of the seven patterns are being utilized in the innovations highlighted below?
What role will political lobbyists play in shaping policies in these highly regulated industries?
These articles are from Healthcare, Insurance, Legal and Banking industries. All of which are highly regulated.
Healx Ltd., which is a British firm just raised $56 million to further research on using artificial intelligence to quickly identify and develop treatments for rare diseases by speeding up discover and testing. The co-founder, Tim Guilliams says that AI is allowing them to do “hypothesis-free” development by letting algorithms decide which diseases they will work on. Read more via Bloomberg
Coming to a Coloscopy near you! Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) has launched the GI Genius in Barcelona, Spain. This new technology will use artificial intelligence technology to detect polyps and spot the presence of pre-cancerous legions. Read more via Seeking Alpha
You can find a previous blog article here about the changes that AI is bringing to the insurance industry through call center operations ( AI Will Lower Costs for Insurance Call Centers; Will it Also Lower Headcount?). Insurers are also introducing drones to check property damage and using robo-advisors to respond to customers. Read more via Yahoo Finance
I have written about facial recognition technologies being applied in the criminal justice domains, but algorithms and machine learning are already at work in lawyers’ offices to more “accurately” review contracts and take a more data-driven approach to the practice of law. Observers think the technology will improve operations by completing high volume recurring tasks like filling out forms. Read more via Observer and Law.com.
The banking industry is predicting job losses due to artificial intelligence technology. A recent report from Wells Fargo is predicting a loss of 200,000 jobs in retail banking by 2030 due to advances in banking automation. The areas projected for impact include back office operations, customer service and compliance. Read more via Winston Salem Journal.
As workers, it is hard to imagine a workplace today that is not going to require us to engage with some amount of artificial intelligence technology. If in the rare situation that we don’t do it at work, we will certainly have to do it in our personal lives if we shop online or do any of our daily activities for which we rely on the use of a smart phone.