Why artificial intelligence shouldn’t intimidate us
Artificial intelligence, business intelligence, the cloud, the Internet of Things, productivity and security — six areas that Microsoft is highlighting at Gitex Technology Week 2017.
Among these, there’s one particular space that a top official says has gained heightened interest — and it’s fitting that it’s first on that list above.
“There’s so much need in the market [for AI]… a lot of of customers are interested to understand how they can benefit from it,” Sayed Hashish, regional general manager of Microsoft Gulf, told Khaleej Times at the company’s pavilion. Hashish stressed one important point: organisations do not have to be intimidated by the hightech nature of AI — especially when it comes to paying the price. “There [seems to be] a big barrier to entering [AI] for a lot of organisations; you have to spend millions and millions to get it,” he says.
One solution that is very viable: democratising the service using, among others, infrastructure that is already available or in place. And the biggest challenge when it comes to AI? “In all honesty,” Hashish points out, “is that we cannot get the competencies fast enough.”
“There’s so much demand on people that are skilled in AI,” he said, adding that building competencies — working hand-in-hand — with partners and customers will help ease this situation. Hashish isn’t also fully sold on forecasts that AI will knock out jobs in the future. Rather, he believes that the nature of some jobs will change. “Some of the stuff we can do today can be replaced by machine learning — definitely yes — but with increased insights and intelligence that we’re getting through AI, that will also create new jobs.”
Gartner, in a separate report, has forecast that by 2020, AI will be a ‘positive net job motivator’, creating 2.3 million jobs — though it would eliminate around 1.8 million by that time. “We all have a responsibility to understand how we can leverage that opportunity and what new jobs can be created, as well as new wealth and investments in the market,” Hashish said.
— alvin@khaleejtimes.com