Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an idea that has oscillated through many hype cycles over many years, as scientists and sci-fi visionaries have declared the imminent arrival of thinking machines. But it seems we’re now at an actual tipping point. AI, expert systems, and business intelligence have been with us for decades, but this time the reality almost matches the rhetoric, driven by the exponential growth in technology capabilities (e.g., Moore’s Law), smarter analytics engines, and the surge in data*.
A look at how AI has made tremendous inroads into the realm of businesses as well as our everyday lives.
Businesses these days have leapfrogged by harnessing technology, and the way they are operating in the present dynamic and competitive environment is stranger than fiction. Customer experience is improving as marketing techniques are getting increasingly scientific. Software tools were enablers until innovators created technology platforms (in a recent digital episode) that not only target the ‘how’ of the improvements but also the ‘who’. Robotic process automation employs software robots that execute repetitive and rule-based processes, while advanced technology dedicated to digital labor beckons intelligent robots to take up a portion of judgment-based decision-making. The advanced side of this digital labor consists of an array of technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, natural language processing, and so on. We will lay emphasis on the smarter aspect of the digital labor spectrum and on what the future holds for us.
Moore’s Law summarizes the observation made by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in the year 1965 that the processing power of computers will double every two years. The Fourth Industrial Revolution by Klaus Schwab deliberates that if this holds true in the future too, computers will attain the same level of processing power as humans in 2025.
The concept
Let us first attempt to disentangle the intricacies of technology and understand its wider applicability in shaping the future of businesses.
AI is the simulation of human intelligence by computers in different ways such as vision, speech, and decision-making abilities; it encompasses self-learning, reasoning, and self-optimization. Machine learning is a branch of AI that enables computers to learn without being explicitly programmed and choose an effective course based on the learnings and experience.
This story is from the November-December 2016 edition of The Smart Manager.
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This story is from the November-December 2016 edition of The Smart Manager.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
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