7 predictions for the evolution of enterprise AI in 2018
While artificial intelligence applications in business and industry remain limited to narrow machine learning tasks, we are seeing progressive improvements in the convergence of algorithms and hardware that will have significant implications for how well and how quickly we can implement AI. Researchers can now train neural networks within a few hours or days, which opens up an amazing range of possibilities, products, and things to learn — as well as challenges — that we could not have even considered before.
For example, Google’s AI group, DeepMind, is hard at work unraveling the mysteries of how proteins fold themselves, a discovery that could have far-reaching implications for health care. It is also very much involved with the research community in working through the ethical issues of AI.
As I see it, 2018 will be the year AI will meet a crossroads — when companies are better able to skim the hype from the reality, and when we can apply AI for both the good and the bane of humanity. Here’s how it can happen:
Recent, widespread security attacks are strong evidence that hackers are becoming more perverse and clever. With the use of artificial intelligence, computers can actually corrupt themselves and hackers can achieve their ends far more quickly and surreptitiously. In 2018, there is a strong likelihood of a high-profile data breach in which hackers reverse-engineer or decompile, then defeat, machine learning (ML) security systems via an insider assault, malware, ransomware, or machine-based attack.
The coming year may see a new and powerful backlash set off by a data breach or in response to the upcoming enforcement of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the E.U. or rescinding of net neutrality in the U.S. During this backlash, individuals could demand that their personal actions on the web, stored as data, be legally recognized as their owned IP. If this happens, industry giants including Facebook and Google, which possess a growing monopoly over this data, will have to answer fundamental questions over who actually owns it. This means users and tech companies alike will have to decide who decides how data is used, profited from, and shared — and AI can provide the answers.
This will be the year hackers, fraudsters, and other organizations operating in the dark web can emerge from the shadows in a new and frightening way, learning how to influence AI chatbots. These interactive agents can already update your bank account balance or serve as your hotel concierge, and bad actors may turn their ability to self-initiate tasks and engage in quasi-conversations to nefarious activities such as crashing utilities, stealing money, and manipulating human actions, opinions, and decisions. The silver lining is that we can also deploy AI to detect the ever more complex ways that charlatans interfere in our lives.
