On course for a sustainable future withartificial intelligence
As the computer scientist John McCarthy posited in 1956, “every aspect … of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it”.
Indeed, only 30 years after this fundamental principle of artificial intelligence (AI) was formulated, the first chess computers shocked the world. Today, another 30 years later, we tell our car where to go, dictate pages of correspondence to a word processing program and complain to a computer-generated hotline assistant.
These systems translate human speech into binary code and, if desired, back again –into any language. This allows the Bulgarian taxi driver to understand where the German tourist in the backseat would like to go. Such tremendous computing power is contained within a handy smartphone that can also capture high definition photos, stream movies and shows from vast libraries, and enable instantaneous international video conferencing.
Today, nearly every other person on the planet has access to the mostly free services of this “mobile intelligence”. Leading influencer Dalith Steiger: “Artificial intelligence will change every area of our lives.” During a train journey along Lake Zurich, we talked to Dalith Steiger, co-founder of the award-winning organization SwissCognitive –The Global AI Hub.
Steiger is one of the world’s leading influencers in the area of AI and was recently named a Top 100 Digital Shaper by Bilanz magazine. SwissCognitive has more than 400,000 followers on social media, where it posts updates on the latest developments in AI. As an expert in the field, Steiger is convinced AI will change almost every aspect of our lives. Since the conversation took place on a train, the topic of mobility soon came up. Steiger: “The world grows more complex every day.
Tremendous strain is being put on infrastructure, tech is engaged in a constant race with itself, climate change is forcing us to rethink our ways and many societal norms are changing. These factors demand and facilitate new solutions to practices that for centuries were ‘just the way we do things’.
The way we approach mobility, for instance, will change dramatically. Change will soon be the constant among topics such as electromobility, the sharing economy, traffic density and smart cities.” Experts agree that in the long term the gradual introduction of AI is the only way to ensure the widespread breakthrough of pioneering options such as electromobility. AI allows communication between mobile and fixed elements in the value-added chain, a critical component in making these processes truly practical.
When a motorist drains the battery in their electric car after 400 km, they don’t want to wait two hours for a charging station to become available – they want to dock immediately at a station that has anticipated their arrival.
ABB charging stations, which are managed and maintained on a remote network, collect the necessary data. In the near future, AI solutions could make this network more robust to meet wider demand. Steiger: “Change will soon be the constant in mobility.”
What else is AI changing in mobility? Will we soon be driving remote-controlled, autonomous vehicles? That’s doubtful, says Steiger: “People like to think in extremes, and many are already imagining an age without drivers. At SwissCognitive, we believe that priority will be given to environmental work and managing freeway capacity. It makes more economic and ecological sense to increase use on some sections of the highway than to spend lots of money on expanding them. Preferably, this would be accomplished by gradually introducing semi-autonomous trucks or even passenger vehicles. These projects are not intended to force out drivers; instead, the goal is to increase infrastructural capacity.This approach could also be applied to rail and air travel.
