Artificial Intelligence is no longer confined to Sci-fi movies and it very much integrated into our everyday lives today in the form of digital assistants on our phones and laptops. Not just that, who could have imagined that we will have self-driving cars someday. But thanks to AI, this was made possible.
However, curiosity still makes us ask- what’s next?
Well, as far as the experts AI is concerned, the best is yet to come! Though all of it might take years and years of study and evolution, read along to know the advances AI can surprise you with, in 2019.
- A Broader Perspective Towards Machine Learning as a Service (MLaaS)
Technology powerhouses like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon demonstrated significant strides in Machine Learning as a Service in the past year. With this, the companies which do not have an in-house department with technical know-how are using these pre-built machine learning solutions to their advantage. This is helping them to sell and deploy packaged solutions in a better way.
This MLaaS software are sold on a subscription basis by enterprises such as Microsoft Azure’s ML Studio, facilitating drag and drop interface for developers. Not just that, through this subscription from cloud-computing providers, developers can easily create powerful and complex algorithms.
The market for MLaaS is expected to grow alarmingly well in 2019 and beyond. As the researchers at Transparency Market Research predict the growth will surpass 40% by 2025.
- More explainable and transparent AI
No matter if you are in touch with AI every day, you are less likely to understand the nuances of output and the complex machine learning structure that governs this technology.
“Black Box” burden where although we are aware of what AI is doing or leading to, we, as humans, fail to understand the logic and rationale behind it. A layman doesn’t know how does it work and what gives it the power to support decision making.
While big giants are keeping their AI technology in guards, it is the open source tools and libraries which are making AI, as a technology, more accessible to everyone. This will democratize AI, provide the developers with some room to study and document the logic, better understand the biases that entail with branded machine learning tools, and seek answers to follow-up questions.
TensorFlow and PyTorch are some open-source tools that are encouraging humankind to learn the true potential of AI and how they can use them for the benefit of humanity.
With the simplification of AI on its way in 2019, if you want to be a part of the AI Revolution, you can take up a course in introduction to Artificial Intelligence too.
- AI will create more jobs than it will take away
Since a decade we’ve feared the development in Artificial Intelligence will create a perfect workless future where we will have the best of technology at our disposal but no jobs to afford them.
However, in 2019 at least, AI is predicted to create more job opportunities than it will take away. As per Garter’s report, in education, healthcare, and public sector, AI is going to create 2.3 million jobs, whereas, 1.2 million will be lost at the “hands” of automation.
Mostly, it is the jobs of warehouse workers, retail cashiers and other manual work that can be done non-manually too that have suffered. On the other hand, the strictly manual jobs such as those of lawyers and doctors cannot be replaced by AI and here the developers have resorted to developing solutions that can work alongside these professionals and aid their work. This rids them of the repetitive tasks, and they have the final say in all matters.
The above pattern is forcing the industries to deploy the workforce and train them to be able to use AI while retaining the professionals and experts.
2019 can also see a decline in the size of the workforce in the financial sector also because the back-end operations are mostly done by automated software.
- AI will become a matter of International Politics
With increasing globalization and advancement in technology, one country advancing more rapidly than another, nations are seen putting up their guards to safeguard their political interests. And early adaptors such as the USA and China, who have always been in conflicts, are likely to keep their self-interests before collaborating for better research and development in AI. Moreover, China went ahead and became a self-reliant nation and is conducting independent research and development.
Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced that it will develop its own AI chip that will give fierce competition to US manufacturers such as Intel.
Google, American Tech Leader, had to break ties with Chinese tech companies for it faced pressure and criticism at home due to the fear that the technology can be militarised.
The first movers in the field of AI are marching ahead, broadening the technological gap between the nations which lagged.
- The business will take more out of Automation and AI
In 2018, companies could better understand what AI is devised to do and what its limitations are. Now that they know the areas where they can use automated AI software and eliminate the redundancy and repetitiveness of specific tasks, businesses are ready to adopt the technology in some domains.
Financial services are using AI to handle thousands of transactions per second and keeping a log of them. The retailers are feeding in their loyalty schemes in the AI interfaces and using them for billing so that they can give some offers to loyal customers. In this way, AI is helping them sell more.
Predictive technology through which manufacturers can better assess until when the machinery will handle the workload and when it might fail is expected to develop further in 2019. This will help them save huge costs.
Other organizational operations such as HR (hiring and firing), scaling operations, and optimizing supply chains, controlling quality, and managing logistics is expected to see the infiltration of AI in 2019.
Well, one cannot brief the impact and development of AI which is going to take place into coming years as has a seemingly infinite scope which is yet to be discovered. Then again, for 2019, its infiltration into international politics and business, increasing ease and transparency, and creation of employment will remain in focus.