Convergence is accelerating disruption… everywhere! Exponential technologies are colliding into each other, reinventing products, services, and industries.
As AI algorithms such as Siri and Alexa can process your voice and output helpful responses, other AIs like Face++ can recognize faces. And yet others create art from scribbles, or even diagnose medical conditions.
Let’s dive into AI and convergence.
Top 5 Predictions for AI Breakthroughs (2019-2024)
My friend Neil Jacobstein is my ‘go-to expert’ in AI, with over 25 years of technical consulting experience in the field. Currently the AI and Robotics chair at Singularity University, Jacobstein is also a Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Stanford’s MediaX Program, a Henry Crown Fellow, an Aspen Institute moderator, and serves on the National Academy of Sciences Earth and Life Studies Committee. Neil predicted five trends he expects to emerge over the next five years, by 2024.
- AI gives rise to new non-human pattern recognition and intelligence results
AlphaGo Zero, a machine learning computer program trained to play the complex game of Go, defeated the Go world champion in 2016 by 100 games to zero. But instead of learning from human play, AlphaGo Zero trained by playing against itself—a method known as reinforcement learning.
Building its own knowledge from scratch, AlphaGo Zero demonstrates a novel form of creativity, free of human bias. Even more groundbreaking, this type of AI pattern recognition allows machines to accumulate thousands of years of knowledge in a matter of hours.
While these systems can’t answer the question “What is orange juice?” or compete with the intelligence of a fifth grader, they are growing more and more strategically complex, merging with other forms of narrow artificial intelligence. Within the next five years, who knows what successors of AlphaGo Zero will emerge, augmenting both your business functions and day-to-day life.
- Doctors risk malpractice when not using machine learning for diagnosis and treatment planning
A group of Chinese and American researchers recently created an AI system that diagnoses common childhood illnesses, ranging from the flu to meningitis. Trained on electronic health records compiled from 1.3 million outpatient visits of almost 600,000 patients, the AI program produced diagnosis outcomes with unprecedented accuracy.
While the US health system does not tout the same level of accessible universal health data as some Chinese systems, we’ve made progress in implementing AI in medical diagnosis. Dr. Kang Zhang, chief of ophthalmic genetics at the University of California, San Diego, created his own system that detects signs of diabetic blindness, relying on both text and medical images.
With an eye to the future, Jacobstein has predicted that “we will soon see an inflection point where doctors will feel it’s a risk to not use machine learning and AI in their everyday practices because they don’t want to be called out for missing an important diagnostic signal.”
- Quantum advantage will massively accelerate drug design and testing
Researchers estimate that there are 1060 possible drug-like molecules—more than the number of atoms in our solar system. But today, chemists must make drug predictions based on properties influenced by molecular structure, then synthesize numerous variants to test their hypotheses.
Quantum computing could transform this time-consuming, highly costly process into an efficient, not to mention life-changing, drug discovery protocol.
“Quantum computing is going to have a major industrial impact… not by breaking encryption,” said Jacobstein, “but by making inroads into design through massive parallel processing that can exploit superposition and quantum interference and entanglement, and that can wildly outperform classical computing.”
- AI accelerates security systems’ vulnerability and defense
With the incorporation of AI into almost every aspect of our lives, cyberattacks have grown increasingly threatening. “Deep attacks” can use AI-generated content to avoid both human and AI controls.
Previous examples include fake videos of former President Obama speaking fabricated sentences, and an adversarial AI fooling another algorithm into categorizing a stop sign as a 45 mph speed limit sign. Without the appropriate protections, AI systems can be manipulated to conduct any number of destructive objectives, whether ruining reputations or diverting autonomous vehicles.
Jacobstein’s take: “We all have security systems on our buildings, in our homes, around the healthcare system, and in air traffic control, financial organizations, the military, and intelligence communities. But we all know that these systems have been hacked periodically and we’re going to see that accelerate. So, there are major business opportunities there and there are major opportunities for you to get ahead of that curve before it bites you.”
- AI design systems drive breakthroughs in atomically precise manufacturing
Just as the modern computer transformed our relationship with bits and information, AI will redefine and revolutionize our relationship with molecules and materials. AI is currently being used to discover new materials for clean-tech innovations, such as solar panels, batteries, and devices that can now conduct artificial photosynthesis.
Today, it takes about 15 to 20 years to create a single new material, according to industry experts. But as AI design systems skyrocket in capacity, these will vastly accelerate the materials discovery process, allowing us to address pressing issues like climate change at record rates. Companies like Kebotix are already on their way to streamlining the creation of chemistries and materials at the click of a button.
Atomically precise manufacturing will enable us to produce the previously unimaginable.
Final Thoughts
Within just the past three years, countries across the globe have signed into existence national AI strategies and plans for ramping up innovation. Businesses and think tanks have leaped onto the scene, hiring AI engineers and tech consultants to leverage what computer scientist Andrew Ng has even called the new ‘electricity’ of the 21st century.
As AI plays an exceedingly vital role in everyday life, how will your business leverage it to keep up and build forward?
In the wake of burgeoning markets, new ventures will quickly arise, each taking advantage of untapped data sources or unmet security needs.
And as your company aims to ride the wave of AI’s exponential growth, consider the following pointers to leverage AI and disrupt yourself before it reaches you first:
- Determine where and how you can begin collecting critical data to inform your AI algorithms
- Identify time-intensive processes that can be automated and accelerated within your company
- Discern which global challenges can be expedited by hyper-fast, all-knowing minds
Remember: good data is vital fuel. Well-defined problems are the best compass. And the time to start implementing AI is now.
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