Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash
An interest piece on Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not a normal topic for McKone Consultancy and shared for information only. This blog does not contain any advice in respect to AI.
I admit to not knowing much about AI and how it might impact business. This however, is one of the reasons that prompted this Blog.
McKinsey's 2022 Global Survey on AI shows that the adoption of this technology has doubled since 2017. McKinsey reports that AI has resulted in some companies who have adopted the technology seeing higher financial returns than their competitors. Source: The state of AI in 2022—and a half decade in review | McKinsey
Microsoft and Google, both widely used in New Zealand and globally, have each unvieled new AI tools. Google states that its AI promises to "help" brainstorm and proofread written documents. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella believes the next generation of AI will unlock a new wave of productivity growth - powerful co-pilots designed to remove the drudgery out of our daily routines. Source: AI and the future of work: Everything is about to change | CNN Business
The downside of AI is its potential to perpetuate biases, be factually incorrect, and respond in an aggressive manner. Anjit Sengupta, CEO and founder of AI solutions Aible, states, "A problem with any large language model is it tries to please the user and typically accepts the premise of the users statements." This suggests that AI can therefore accept gossip as a norm and will generate content related to the gossip.
This was demonstrated recently when a German publisher found to have published a fake interview with Michael Schumacher. The interview was generated by AI and relied upon piecing together quotes that were from Michael Schumacher but never as part of a journalist interview. The publishing of this fake article resulted in the dismissal of the Chief Editor of Die Aktuelle magazine. Source: The Dominion Post , p34 Monday 23 April 2023.
For businesses, we need to be alert to the fact that future employees may well use AI to generate their CVs and other reference material when applying for jobs. Our employees may utilise AI to improve their productivity. AI experts are telling us that AI is not an up to date tool. Even CHATGPT-4's data training had a cut off in September 2021, this will mean that there are inaccuracies that will come out of AI.
Arun Chandrasekaran, an analyst at Gartner Research, has said businesses will need to educate their users on what AI solutions are good at and what their limitations are. Chandrasekaran goes on to say, “Blind trust in these solutions is as dangerous as complete lack of faith in the effectiveness of it. Generative AI solutions can also make up facts or present inaccurate information from time to time – and organizations need to be prepared to mitigate this negative impact.”
What this means for business is that the onus will have to be on the users of AI to do everything from double check the accuracy to change the language to reflect the tone they want.
So, in the meantime, be cautious of AI and as the experts are suggesting, double check the facts that AI present you. CHATGPT won't be for everyone. If you are a user of ZOOM for video calls and want to experience a productivity AI solution, ZOOM have an add-on app called Fathom that will automatically transcribe your video calls. McKone Consultancy recently trialed this technology in a video interview and found 90% accuracy. When different speakers are logged in from different computers, the AI recognised, with reasonable accuracy, who was speaking and what we were saying - demonstrating that our Kiwi accent was not a huge problem for the AI. However, formatting of the transcript was still required and there were times when the AI mixed up who was saying what. The AI also did not understand Te Reo when we used it. So, as the experts said, double checking of the transcript was still required to get it to 100%. However, play back of the recording while checking the transcript improved the time to check for and correct errors. Note: This article is not an endorsement of either ZOOM or Fathom.
Comments