Anthropomorphizing AI is easy to do. In the age of smart assistants like Google Home, Alexa, and Siri, we imagine that these technologies have our best interests at heart. While painting a mental picture of AI, we usually envision machines that think, learn, and come to conclusions as humans do.
For a general understanding of the phenomenon, Artificial Intelligence is described as the Intelligence possessed and displayed by machines and technologies as opposed to the one exhibited by humans. For lack of a better term, AI is used as a blanket expression to represent Machine Learning, cognitive computing, image recognition, and more.
Human intelligence, on the other hand, is an innate ability of the mind exclusive to humans. It is a quality that equips and empowers individuals to utilize knowledge — whether acquired from daily experience, cognitive development, or comprehension of abstract concepts — to interact with their environment. What a machine can do that has warranted the suffix, “intelligence,” is mimic this quality, in an albeit watered down manner, to make human lives easier.
AI technologies are born from mathematical and computational processes. These processes harness computing power to design and develop models of operating systems through combining large data sets.
The advantages of AI are many but are most apparent within the business.
In a recent study conducted by Gartner, AI augmentation was predicted todrive business worth exceeding $2.9 trillion and save organizations implementing the technology an estimated 6.2 billion man-hours worldwide. Another survey by McKinsey revealed that AI analytics could increase global GDP by $13 trillion by 2030,a16% rise.
It’s been documented that the adoption of AI can improve business processes. As a significant data initiative, almost 61 percent of businesses claim Machine Learning (ML) and AI to be their organization’s leading light. This proliferation of AI has led to a40 percent projected increase in labor productivity.
Machine learning supplements automation and drives the biggest gains when applied to cyclical operational decisions made thousands of times a day, eventually replacing the most repetitive aspects of routine work.
For instance, ML has been successful at automating repetitive finance tasks such as the matching of payments and invoices,increasing matching rates by 24 percent in a matter of a few weeks and leading to huge savings.
However, while AI can perform repetitive tasks with greater efficiency, better accuracy, and higher speed, human expertise is still the most crucial factor in designing AI technology in the first place. It is this intelligence that AI seeks to emulate and is what molds the adoption, development, and emergence of AI and related innovative solutions. Ultimately, it is human intelligence that thinks and questions, asking what and why through critical thinking.
It’s already been established that AI is a huge boost to businesses around the globe — but its real potential lies in unbridling the power of human intelligence. Instead of usurping humans and treating them as secondary in the pursuit of organizational goals, AI can be used to leverage the unique human abilities of creativity, adaptability, and leadership.
It could also enhance human intelligence in ways unseen before. Sales teams can use AI to review catalogs of potential deals.
