Cognitive Intelligence, the augmented Artificial Intelligence

The global Artificial Intelligence (AI) market size is expected to grow to USD 309.6 billion by 2026, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 39.7%

I recently interviewed Dalith Steiger from SwissCognitive, the World-Leading AI Network (AI Network For Peace) and had a great conversation about

• The state of AI. – The difference between Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Intelligence.
• Why you don’t need technology to have bad intentions.
• The diversity of Music
• High Heels

Dalith will be speaking at the World AI Cannes Festival #WAICF

Yves Mulkers:
Hi, Dalith, welcome to the show. I picked up that you will be speaking at the World AI Conference in town. Maybe for our audience, you can introduce yourself, what you’re doing with this Swiss Cognitive, and what is a bit your background?

Dalith Steiger-Gablinger:
Thanks a lot. I feel privileged to be able to talk to you about our topic, AI. This is one of my passions. An intro about myself, who I am in a nutshell.

I’m actually the co-founder of Swiss Cognitive, and also the Cognitive Ballet Foundation. I’m a serial entrepreneur. Born in Israel, grew up in Switzerland and one of my goals is to Switzerlize the globe.

Besides my drive for cognitive technologies, I’m a loving mother of two young women, 18 and 20. I’m absolutely family person, a passionate mountain biker and off roader, and a big fan of high heel shoes. I know we’re going to come to that topic later on.

Yves Mulkers:
Thank you. That’s a whole lot of stuff that keeps you going. In a general way, do you have some fun facts about yourself? I like to challenge most people when they come into the show.

I’ve got that question once when I started with McKinsey, it was, tell me the most embarrassing moment in your life? “Would I tell it, should I tell it?” These are the three fun facts I’d like to ask you, that you can share with the public.

Dalith Steiger-Gablinger:
Absolutely. One, we just discussed that before. We sometimes struggle with basic infrastructure, connectivity, batteries low, whatsoever. I’m still taking notes by hand especially when I moderate.

I was actually literally standing like this here, moderating a panel and I ran out of ink. That was really embarrassing. You’re just in the middle of moderation, you go it doesn’t work.

Hey, sorry guys and girls, I’ll be right back. I just went out on stage and brought another one. That was quite embarrassing. The other one, in the meantime, it’s not embarrassing anymore for me, it’s probably more embarrassing for my co-founder because I got really used to it.

I’m actually not only have difficult to remember names, what most or a lot of people do have, but I’m also blind to faces. What also quite some people have, but the combination it doesn’t really help in my work.

I can literally start a conversation with someone without knowing who I have in front of me. This can really sometimes irritates the other person a lot.

My co-founder has gotten used to it to jump in and intervene, saying, I think you think this person is another person. This is also very, very embarrassing.

Yves Mulkers:
I find it funny that you bring this up, that you have a problem recognizing people. Your artificial intelligence, which is one of your passions, but as well a cognitive intelligence.

The difference, what you see between artificial intelligence and cognitive intelligence, how do you see that? Because in your name of the company, it’s Swiss Cognitive, that people can understand that the slight difference between the two words.

Dalith Steiger-Gablinger:
I’d rather talk about cognitive technology than AI, because for me, AI is absolutely misleading description. Because if we’re talking about artificial joints, organs, even plants, we always think it needs to be as neutral as possible.

This is the aim. But if we talk about artificial intelligence, we’re now talking about copping the human brain.

It’s about augment us, about making our lives easier, supporting us where we are weak in efficiency, in quality, in speed, in all different ways.

For me, artificial intelligence is misleading, so therefore I dislike this expression, and I’d rather talk about cognitive technologies.

Yves Mulkers:
The cognitive part is more the augmentation with the technology, if I do understand you correct. We had the big discussion about artificial intelligence and that needs to be non-biased.

It’s pretty hard to create a non-biased artificial intelligence algorithm, because we feed it everything, what we know. We feed it through literature, we feed it whatever it finds online.

If we don’t give it the full context, it’s pretty hard to create it non-biased. I always compare it in a certain way with us people.

Unfortunately, I start talking to you, I like you before. Maybe I like your eyes, your face, your expression, your passion, your energy, whatever. I become biased as well. That’s for me, a big trick in there.

Is that something that keeps you busy, or what you see is happening on the markets surrounding artificial intelligence, or augmenting us and making sure that AI is not giving us the wrong directions if we use it?

Dalith Steiger-Gablinger:
I think you said it by yourself, spot on, it’s about our ourself. We are biased. Because if we wouldn’t be biased, our data wouldn’t be biased. That’s just a matter of fact. There are different ways also to look at biases in my opinion.

On one hand, bias can be understood as a bias, just because we are coming out of the different culture. Who takes the right to say, which culture is right to begin with?

The topic of bias is really, really complicated. At the end of the day, for me, people tell me, “You know what? It’s biased, technology is biased.”

First of all, it’s definitely not technology which is biased, it is the data. There it is fed by ourself. This is what we are gaining from out there.

This is what we think, what we write, what we picture we take, comments we do, it’s everything about us. I’d rather say, now we have the chance to unbias the bias, because someone just holds up the mirror telling us, are you sure you want to have this result out of this data?

You may need to check the data, make sure the data is accurate. This is one of the very important points working with cognitive technology, it’s an iterative process.

We have to question always the results. We have to see where we need, or might need to adjust, to rethink. I’m a mathematician, statistics, it’s all about data. An average of two numbers, is just simply not the same of 10, 100 or a million.

These are just really simple things that I think we human beings need to understand, that now actually with AI and the huge amount of data we have.

That now we have really the chance to unbias the bias, to ask ourself, to open up to other cultures and rethink whether our culture, our way of thinking is really the right one.

Where we might actually need to find other rules, other frames. What actually brings us to the topic of ethics at the end of the day.

Yves Mulkers:
I find it you keep on saying, if this culture is right, there’s nothing about right or wrong. I’m thinking about artificial intelligence, will it help us?

I don’t like to say flatten out the cultures, but get it more aligned and connected and more understanding for people. Where we are afraid for artificial intelligence, that typically it’s going to take our jobs.

That’s the big shout out what we hear all the time. But in such a way where you say, it’s going to help us evolve as a human being, is that what do you think in augmenting and the cognitive aspect of artificial intelligence?

Dalith Steiger-Gablinger:
Absolutely and on different levels. I wouldn’t say it flattens the cultures, the different ones. I think it opens the horizon. It gives us a chance, it’s like a present.

Especially now during the pandemic, where we were able to connect globally, because of a lack of alternatives. We had to Zoom, to Teams, to whatever you want to call it.

It really gave us a possibility to exchange with all people from all cultures, countries, backgrounds. This is something the human being needs to learn. This is one of the things that we always love to do, and we always do.

From that perspective, I think it’s an enrichment, but also we have to be careful. Obviously you say, so which one is the right one? There is no right or wrong. It always depends from which angle you look at it.

For me, there is only one thing where I would love to say this is right for all the global citizen, and this is a human and children’s rights.

Coming from there, this is for me, as a mathematician, I would say it’s an axio. It is involving the people. It gives a chance for different people to connect, to get into different jobs.

You mentioned, people are afraid of losing the job. Let’s turn it around. Let’s have a look on what happened with disabled people, who just simply didn’t have any possibility to work because of their disability, their whatever.

Now through technology, not only cognitive technology, but through technology, they literally have access to workforce. How comes if someone comes and say, I have the right of a lifelong job?

The other one, they just born like that, or they had a horrible accident. It’s tough luck? No. This is about also inclusion. At the end of the day, I also don’t really like to talk about losing a job.

The technology supports us. It makes certain tasks redundant. Certain jobs, especially in the future will be redundant, always have been, history showed it.

This is just also the way how we develop. But at the end of the day, we also adjust ourself. We learn. One of the nicest thing in the topic of cognitive technology, or literally technology, is it frees up time for ourself.

Yves Mulkers:
Dalith, if I can rephrase it, you are very hopeful for AI and technology to support human being. That we get more value for our life. That’s something that keeps me busy.

We have a lot of technology and I very often feel a bit enslaved of the technology, because it’s not always working right.

I spend so much time getting my iPhone up and running, connecting my audio, connecting my lights, had to raise that our training as such.

With AI, or the cognitive intelligence, these are more complex technologies multi layered, if you talk about deep learning and neural networks.

That’s pretty complex, but still you see that will drive more sustainability for the future, especially what you say purely for the human part.

We as a human, but in a general way as for climate change, if you see on that, that’s to your belief, will be very helpful as well if we can bring AI into the game then.

Dalith Steiger-Gablinger:
Absolutely. We like to talk about AI for good. If we’re thinking of the sustainable development goals of the UN. We have so many use cases, where you see where the implementation of cognitive technologies is supporting there.

For example, accessibility for health treatment in emerging locations. It’s AI against poverty, applied in agriculture, for example, image recognition for optimal sewing and harvesting for sugar cane.

It’s about global accessibility for education. For me, one besides health, the most important thing, education is everything. That’s the basic to take the next step.

It’s also about environmental friendly. How do you say? If you optimize the cargo and then you can reuse fuel, for example. This are really small use cases, very trivial use cases.

We have much more complex use cases, but sometimes the solutions are in the small little step that we can do something good for the sustainable development goals.

For me, this is definitely the AI for good. Actually it’s somehow also [foreign language]. How do you say that in English?

Yves Mulkers:
The balance.

Dalith Steiger-Gablinger:
The balance between AI for good and AI for economy, it doesn’t need to be controversial. It really can support, especially the example that I mentioned before in agriculture.

Yves Mulkers:
I hear you talking and say, it’s going to be more AI for good or the balance, the good balance, because what I see is now technology is very often serving economics and the big companies, the big organizations.

They have the budgets to get the technology. But for the small people, it’s not really open. There I’m hopeful as well on that AI and technology will drive that change.

I feel for the time being, we’re in an influx with the war going on in the world. But you see it happening in a more positive way. Is there something where you say, I see this happening in five years, 20 years, or how close is this to you?

I know, like you said, for agriculture, that’s already happening. I see marvelous things that you think wow, that’s great and it’s going to be very helpful. But still it’s not so tangible in our economical system right now.

Dalith Steiger-Gablinger:
Yes and no. One of the examples that we all know all ready today. Agriculture is something more special. Only people who are really working in this field are probably aware of that.

But just to do the bridge there, this is not only AI for economy. It’s really about AI against poverty. If you can support those farmers in Indonesia to optimize the harvest.

At the end, they make more money. They have more money to buy food, to give their family. It always goes hand in hand. The other thing is what we today already have is in healthcare.

We our age, especially our parents, we used to say, if you go to doctors, they say, “You need surgery.” You’re going to say, “You know what? I’ll go back. I will need to have a second opinion, third opinion.”

Actually today, you have the possibility of have the second, third, thousands, millions opinion just by using the data in a proper per way.

Using cognitive technology for that, especially for example, early recognition of breast cancer. These are things that are happening today. It’s not in five and not in 10 years.

Another thing and you just mentioned before how you struggle, and we all struggle with technology, iPhones, all the devices and connectivity. We are growing with that, we’re getting more mature.

The more technology comes in, the more steps we are doing, we are also getting more mature. We’re learning. Giving in a prediction in five or even 10 years from today, for me, doesn’t really make sense in the meaning of we are growing with that together.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I have two girls, 18 and 20. The way how they look at data privacy for example, it’s already total different than you and me.

We’re in a generation above them, more than even. We really need to learn. We also need to learn, not always to question everything, is it good? We’re going to be in five or 10 years.

Let’s do the first little steps where it helps us. Don’t look always for what it can harm. This is what I mentioned before. For me, the most important thing, is the human and the children’s right.

We need to make sure that we are in the ethical boundaries. We are respectful with everyone. Honestly, these times are just showing it again. We don’t need technology to be cruel. The human being is cruel.

It’s not the technology, we’re just abusing it. But we can also use technology for good. This is where we really need to focus on.

We have to make sure that technology is not being abused. But since 9/11, we know also you don’t need AI. You can also simply get into a plane. We rather need to see how we can handle these very bad people.

Yves Mulkers:
That’s a great wrap up Dalith really, really love your thoughts on that. Like you say, we don’t need technology to be cruel. We always look into technology that, that is the reason to become cruel.

But I think we’re pretty fortunate that technology will help us create less cruelty, or just help us get rid of those cruel and bad people in the world. Very, very hopeful for that.

As a closer, I’m really into music, that’s one of my other passions. I’ve been a DJ as well. I’ve learned that a lot of people in data are also into music, very surprisingly as well. Do you like music? What is your favorite type of music, or your favorite band?

Dalith Steiger-Gablinger:
First of all, I must say I literally don’t have favorites. I love diversity, no matter in music, in food, in drinks, in people, in high heels, just everywhere. For me, I don’t have a favorite.

I love music. I love music because I love dance and dance again goes really good together with high heels. There is a lot going on with AI and music, especially also to support, even more than support, how you say, to really empower the artist with their rights.

Also, there again, abuse of rights. There is a lot going on. Even here in Switzerland, even actually next door. I’m not going to do how Andy says pitch, but we have some pretty cool startups within the music industry.

But if you really want to have something about my passion, it’s probably going to be more about high heels and not music. I’m sorry to say.

Yves Mulkers:
What is that passion for high heels? I see it on your LinkedIn profile. We’ve been discussing that. I can imagine that you have closets full of high heels, or it’s something that helps you out. Can you please share? I’m so curious about your high heels.

Dalith Steiger-Gablinger:
I’ll be more than happy. I love them. They make me feel very feminine and graceful. Especially they remind me of my grandma and she unfortunately died. Unfortunately, probably fortunately she died last December with almost 102.

She literally just fell asleep. For me, she’s my great role model. She was in television. She was a journalist, a writer. She did a lot of things.

She actually talked to a lot of … How do you say? Statesman, to big people in the economy. She was always dressed up very nicely, always with high heels, always makeup.

As I mentioned, she died in December with almost 102. Thinking of her age, she was such a doer of her time. She was a woman as she liked to be. You don’t need high heels and you don’t need long hair to be a woman, obviously.

But for me, it’s something that makes me feminine. I like it. I like to be a feminine woman and I am in tech. I studied mathematics. We were five students, women.

I’m always surrounded by men, but I don’t feel that I have to get into this role. Getting dressed like them. No, it’s me. I want to be accepted and respected like that.

For me, high heels, since I’m 16 always gave me the feeling of that’s my … How do you say? Just my sign. I don’t know really how you say that in English.

Funny ways, it’s the matter how you stand, depending on which shoes, which high heels, you have another standing and then I feel more comfortable

Yves Mulkers:
Dalith, that’s wonderful to wrap up. I really appreciate that you say I’m wearing the high heels not because the men like it, because just that’s me. Thanks for your authenticity. Thanks for this really great chat. Thank you very much.

Dalith Steiger-Gablinger:
Thank you too. Thanks a lot.