AI Summit 2018

I attended the London AI Summit last week. Really good event. A lot of speakers thinking about what is coming next. But a couple of things stood out to me. First, whenever I asked exhibitors what was the “intelligence” part of their AI product, I got a lot of blank looks. I know, I was being a smart alec. Get used to it. But frankly a lot of what people are rolling out what looks to me like highly capable mail merge, search or analytic software. Don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t earth shaking. What’s earth shaking is what happens next, whatever that is. Don’t believe me? Here’s what  one speaker said:

I think that was  Alex McMullan, CTO EMEA, Pure Storeage , but I could be wrong. I had a long night before. In any case, the point is that some people might agree with me that Judgement Day is not here yet. There’s a gap between what people expect will be delievered  and what is being delivered now.

Some people think that that gap is being closed quickly. Mike Duke, for example. I don’t know enough to say.

But if there is a gap there, it is only in duration and everyone agrees it is going to be closed.

A second gap also exists though in how the law will handle all of this. Everyone can understand that there will be an importance of how the law handles the interaction between customer and business once AI is engages with the customer. I picked up books that talked about the morality and ethics of that and heard lectures about how AI will interact about AI. People think immediately about privacy laws. Discussions ensue about what it means for AI to engage in transactions and whether AI can form a contract. If AI owned by a company forms a contract on its own, does it bind the company?

As a certainty though, no one is talking about what it means for AI to take on roles in the operation of a company. I got a lot of blank looks on that one too.

Mind the gaps.

Justin.