How Will AI Build Human Value, Without Human Cost?

AI hype has warmed and cooled many times before. So how can organisations make sure their latest AI investments are seen through the lens of long-term value rather than short-term cost?

- Prianka Srinivasan

Touted as the “new electricity”, AI is expected to transform every industry — spawning new products and services, unlocking new efficiencies, creating new business models, driving new profit pools and delivering significant financial and human value. Expectations of and enthusiasm for AI has reached a new high, gaining a prominent position in the C-suite and with governments as part of their broader digital transformation efforts.

THE “AI WINTER”

But we have seen this fanfare around AI before; first from its inception in the 1950s to the mid-70s and subsequently from 1980 to 1987. Both periods were followed by an “AI Winter” — a period where funding declined, interest waned and research in the field went underground.

Given this historical record and the prevailing optimism around AI today, it seems natural to ask: Will AI face another “winter” — are we in for déjà-vu? And if so, how might business leaders and governments manage and mitigate the risks of their AI investments and ensure that AI builds human value without inflicting human cost?

To mitigate the risk of an AI investment or project being frozen amid costly and consequential outcomes, keep the following imperatives in mind: 1. Understand the capabilities of AI technologies today. 2. Understand the cost of a mistake. 3. Curb your enthusiasm: it’s no human brain (yet).

WHAT AI TECHNOLOGIES ARE CAPABLE OF TODAY

The Dartmouth Conference held in 1956 kicked off a golden age of intense research into AI with the aim “of making a machine behave in ways that would be called intelligent if a human were so behaving.”