AI Myths

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20 June 2019

What do you really know about AI?

We’re all hearing a lot about Artificial Intelligence these days, but don’t be too quick to believe everything you hear. Skynet is not about to switch on and take over. Nor will we all be out of jobs within a few years as it outsmarts us. Understanding its potential for your business is what you should be focussing on and not the myths that are quickly spreading. This article should help you do just that.

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Firstly, what exactly is AI?

Well, in short, it’s human-like intelligence shown by technology, i.e. when machines demonstrate behaviours such as learning and rationalisation or can problem-solve to make decisions. These can be used to mimic human interactions such as a chatbot or to drive autonomous cars or even help plan and recommend your next purchase on a website. The current uses for AI already seem endless, and with the introduction of 5G and the ever-advancing research into it, no one knows where it will take us.

10 AI myths.

What we do know, however, are ten myths that can quickly and easily be proven incorrect. By knowing these, you should have a better understanding of what AI can and can’t do for your business and may even help you sleep a little better at night.

AI and Machine Learning are the same.

While they are two terms you will see and hear side by side, they are not the same thing. ML is a subset of AI that learns from data to maximise performance. Given a specific task, AI will create self-learning algorithms from patterns in data and change accordingly without having to be reprogrammed. A simple way of putting it is that if AI leads us to wisdom, ML leads to knowledge.

 

 

All Black-Box AI needs to be explainable.

As the world of AI becomes a part of everyday life, so do the ethical and legal requirements of its findings. Internal AI that generates ideas and insights which will be tested again before deployment doesn’t need an explanation as to why it made a decision. However, AI that makes decisions that can affect people, such as eligibility for loans or AI that can have dire consequences such as autonomous vehicles have a high requirement for explaining their decision-making process.

AI is all about algorithms and models.

Yes, these are a part of AI, but there is a lot more to creating successful AI. Firstly you need to identify a problem that AI can help you solve. Then there’s the discipline that will be utilised to develop a solution. Once done, you can then decide how you’re going to deliver the AI, i.e. an autopilot system, product recommendations on your website or even a smart home device.

We don’t need AI in our business.

Every business should be looking into the potential benefit and impact that AI could have for them. No matter how big or small, AI can shape the way you do business. And with the number of success cases growing daily, you can easily research and find models suitable for your business.

AI can be free of bias.

As time progresses, we may see less bias in AI. But in reality, AI feeds off the data we give it, and often this will be biased. Steps can be taken, like ensuring your data is of the highest quality, and eventually, we’ll see automated bias-detection algorithms, but until there is less bias in society, it will always be there. 

AI will only replace repetitive jobs.

AI’s ability to find patterns within complex unstructured data such as images, audio and documents means it is already doing highly skilled tasks such as extracting data from thousands of legal documents in minutes. It helps radiologists detect disease faster than ever before, writes articles about sports events, determines hotel room prices and airline seats, and even provides wealth management in some financial services. So, while it’s not taking our jobs just yet, AI is getting smarter and is spreading further into the working environment.

There is one best AI platform vendor.

Right now, there is no correct choice when it comes to an AI vendor. With so many different approaches to be taken into the world of AI, it’s best to understand what’s best for your business. Look to utilise existing or create new relationships with cloud vendors, system integrators or purpose-built data science and ML platforms.

Deep learning is the best AI.

While deep neural networks are incredibly useful and are providing some fantastic breakthroughs, they’re not necessarily the best form of AI. Nor are they what your business needs. Many traditional and rule-based systems can prove to be much more cost-effective. The Kaggle website is an excellent example of how AI problems are still solved using a variety of techniques and not just deep learning. 

AI works the same as the human brain.

We’ve seen human-like AI in a lot of movies, and for now, that’s where it will stay. Artificial general intelligence is at least 20-30 years away if ever at all. While AI can outperform at specific tasks, it is simple and generally good at one job. If you change the parameters, it will fail. Therefore, always use 

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