Is AI Coming For Our Jobs? We Asked An Expert.

Automation. Digital Transformation. Artificial intelligence. 

Let’s be honest: when it comes to the world of work, these concepts inspire as much fear for the future as they do hope. Which industries will they supercharge, or make redundant? Can we expect changes that rival the revolution of the internet? Or will AI put us out of work completely?!

To find out what’s really going on, we sat down with Clemens Wasner, one of Europe’s leading authorities on artificial intelligence, as well as the Founder and CEO of EnliteAI.

Breaking Out of the Productivity Plateau

Without knowing it, most businesses have dozens of AI processes already in place. In fact, we have become so accustomed to them that we couldn’t imagine life without them. But for new innovations and AI processes, the importance cannot be understated.

Wasner has analyzed data from hundreds of AI integrations and has found that three major changes always arise. Introducing AI will lead to

1. increased efficiency;
2. increased economic growth; and,
3. create entirely new business models.

Of these three conclusions, the most easily reachable for everyday businesses is of course increasing efficiency.

“We are now in the era of the lowest productivity growth since the second world war. Ever since the economic crash of 2008/09, overall productivity growth has fallen flat,” said Wasner.

One of the key reasons for this is that we have reached a peak when it comes to structured data processes. Unstructured data on the other hand, like image recognition, is where AI can be the big lever to improved productivity growth once again, much like we had in the 1990s.

What’s Next? The Future of AI

Wasner believes we are currently in a process of transition, with huge innovations on the horizon. But the key to unlocking this will be changing how data is processed. Right now, creating new AI tools requires large amounts of data sets, and the process is time and resource intensive.

This is a challenge for businesses without existing data, or the expertise to exploit what they have. But this is starting to change. New research in the field of ‘few shot’ learning should make it easier to develop artificial intelligence applications without the need for mountains of data, while platforms such as the Anyline Trainer show how the training process can be massively simplified and automated.

Concluding our talk, Wasner pointed to a final, no less important innovation AI will bring to the world of work. If used correctly, artificial intelligence has the ability to calculate massive amounts of data and present the most efficient and ideal solution for any task – far more efficiently than any human brain is capable of.

In industries such as logistics and supply chain, retail, fleet management, and even freight forwarding, this capacity for understanding and solving complex and variable tasks will bring unimaginable advancements.

Conclusion

From data capture processes to safety and security protocols, AI has the power to create a new sense of efficiency that is far beyond what is currently possible. In the words of Wasner, its effects are already so profound that by not embracing these solutions today, you could be giving yourself a serious business handicap in the future.