As algorithms get exponentially more advanced, AI will become even more lifelike. But, the biggest gap between real and virtual is a hurdle almost impossible to imagine in a machine; can AI account for emotion and feelings? To date, one of the hardest things for AI to emulate is human emotion. AI robots shown at the Consumer Electronics Show still appear “off” when compared to humans. We already make synthetic models that look convincingly human. Remarkably lifelike and able to respond with intelligence and knowledge far exceeding one human’s capacity, they still ring false.

For an AI to fully resemble a human, there must be the ability to successfully express emotion. But human emotions are so nuanced, even we don’t always understand them! Can we program a machine to adequately convey emotions? …Can a program move to the next step and possess feelings?

Machines And Emotion

We all know that when an AI speaks, it’s just drawing from a computer program. The machine pulls data from large sets and follows codes that inform about ways to apply the data into coherent sentences. It’s basically just following the rules. More advanced programs that include anticipation, prediction, and decision-making are also just following a set of rules, albeit a much more complicated set within an algorithm.

The groundwork exists for machines to replicate emotion, even though the ability to feel does not exist. With new developments such as the Neural Text-To-Speak (NTTS) approach, AI could conceivably follow the rules enough to simulate emotions. AI that uses NTTS can, at long last, navigate those nuances of human emotion and parse out the tonal differences between an enthusiastic and an excited sounding voice. Suddenly, the wooden responses from a digital voice is gone, and the machine sounds much more natural.

And natural is the key. To bridge the gap that would create a realistic humanoid, there must be a way to make it seem less “off,” less digital. With NTTS, a machine could sift through its data, predict a response, and deliver a reply with the appropriate inflection, the emotional cues of language.

“I Love You, Too!!”

While the notion of an AI capable of emotion is far-fetched and unlikely to appear on the horizon any time soon, closer to fruition may be AI that responds to human emotions. Facial recognition and audio software already respond to human faces and voices. It’s not a great stretch of the imagination to consider a machine that can recognize feelings and deliver an appropriate—though programmed— response; it’s a simulation, not an emulation.

For example, today, if you tell the virtual assistant device Alexa, “I love you,” the device will say a variety of pleasantries, devoid of anything other than the usual affable tone. Tomorrow, you might get a response with such affection that you suddenly find yourself feeling affectionate, too.

It all gets very interesting quickly, then, as human nature is programmed to respond to emotion. What will the next evolution of society look like once a machine can invoke emotions in humans?

Will technology, and specifically artificial intelligence (AI), destroy our careers? Indeed, the possibility of jobs being overtaken by machines has been a regular theme across media headlines. I want to pose a different question, however – what if AI will instead improve our career prospects?

Granted, there is a grain of truth to these widespread media speculations; it is likely that, in the coming 12 months and beyond, AI will be used to automate a host of different jobs that are otherwise too repetitive, costly, or time consuming to be left to humans. A 2018 report from the World Economic Forum suggests that 75 million jobs may be displaced globally by a shift in the division of labour between humans and machines in the next five years.

However, this won’t just leave an empty vacuum; the report also suggests that 133 million new roles may emerge that are more adapted to this division. This means that this movement could create 58 million new jobs in just half a decade.

The overarching point is that, rather than worrying about whether AI will render humans redundant in a professional capacity, we should instead be focusing on how it might reshape the job market – and how we can adapt to reap the rewards.

Will the job market change?

Looking to the coming months and years, this is a certainty. But fear not: rather than simply displacing jobs, AI will be used to enhance human performance and generate value for businesses across various sectors.

In the near future, we will likely see humans liberated from dull administrative tasks. Rather than squandering precious time and resource on repetitive and mundane jobs – like data processing and management – these responsibilities can be left to machines. Human workers will then be free to divert their attention to more complex problems and creativity-intensive tasks; responsibilities that are sure to boost personal fulfilment and job satisfaction.

This all comes down to the way AI functions. AI toolsets can scan vast amounts of data (at an infinitely faster rate than its human counterparts), and using intelligent algorithms, analyse the data to extract powerful insights – making it an important asset to a whole range of industries.

As a case in point, let’s consider how companies are utilising digital assistants, in the form of chatbots, to relieve workers of administrative pressures. Indeed, answering standard questions from clients and consumers, day in-day out, is a massive drain on company resources that would be better off diverted elsewhere.

That’s why companies are increasingly relying on AI to handle this responsibility. Using the banks of information that the intelligent machines have access to, these chatbots can answer incoming questions and queries. Should it struggle to provide an adequate response, however, the chatbot can direct people to the relevant professional. What’s more, with machine learning (ML) capabilities, these tools are constantly learning and improving their performance.

This is just one example of the value that AI can bring to a business, and the power of collaboration between humans and machines. In order to create a symbiotic partnership like this, however, professionals must evolve their skill sets and give careful thought to how they can work in partnership with intelligent machines.

How will the workforce embrace AI?

We are likely to see AI make some jobs obsolete in the coming months and years, whilst fundamentally changing the nature of others. However, this opens up a host of new opportunities for people to upskill and explore other disciplines.

The coming of AI will favour those with digital skills; indeed, the demand for data literacy will certainly be on the rise. Data Analysts and Scientists, Software and Applications Developers, and Ecommerce and Social Media Specialists are just some examples of new job disciplines that will be coming to the forefront in the near future, according to the aforementioned World Economic Forum report.

This will also be met with growing demand for “soft skills” such as leadership, communication, and creativity. Indeed, not everyone is destined to become a programmer or engineer.

The same report suggests that we will see more opportunities emerging in fields that require more distinctively ‘human’ skills. In coming years, there will be a huge demand for positions such as Customer Service Workers, Human Resources Specialists, and Innovation Managers. This should bring home the point that – no matter how far AI advances in the near future, humans have certain characteristics that machines simply cannot replace. 

I envision a strong partnership between humans and machines in 2020 and beyond; it is certainly an exciting time for AI, with plenty of developments on the horizon. However, unlocking AI’s power rests on collaboration – and this means we must focus on building awareness of how professionals and businesses can utilise the technology to their best advantage.

Nikolas Kairinos is the chief executive officer and founder of Fountech.ai, a company specialising in the development and delivery of artificial intelligence solutions for businesses and organisations.

The world’s embrace of artificial intelligence has influenced many aspects of our lives. Across a wide swath of sectors, artificial intelligence is fast becoming a mainstay tech, so it’s no surprise that there could be an impact to businesses when it comes to hiring.

Today’s marketable employee still needs the same skills from 15 years ago such as related skills, a good work ethic, and the drive to excel at the job. However, thanks to AI, a new ability is topping the charts for job candidate requirements, and it’s a 21^st Century Skill. Today, more and more jobs are enhanced by or need candidates that understand coding.

Why Coding

Coding, the ability to write computer language, the strings of commands and logic that compel a machine to do something, used to be a niche skill for select few types of jobs. While that still holds true, there are so many types of computer languages and uses for AI that now, many sectors and mainstream jobs benefit from hiring people who understand coding.  

While not everyone must learn coding to program the next big-data mine, there are all manner of jobs that require an understanding of coding. Every piece of this technology needs an array of support staff to market, sell, and mass produce the things that use AI. And, as more devices emerge, there will be a market for 3^rd parties to add on, integrate, or support these devices

Customer support representatives will benefit from understanding ways to troubleshoot or communicate about this tech, technical support employees will need to know the infrastructure of AI, and master data teams should have a grasp of the way machines process the information.

While these and other support teams do not need degrees in computer science, an understanding of how the code works and at least what is it looks like on the screen can be very helpful. From answering questions to fixing problems, knowledge of coding makes it easier to integrate these programs.

Even knowing a little bit about coding makes being around computer code a lot less intimidating. Basic knowledge such as learning the way computer languages delineate one command from the next or which command to execute and which to ignore can make it more manageable and less scary to encounter code.

Coding Careers

The niche market for advanced coding still exists, and its moving beyond niche to mainstream. Learning code may be the start of a new career path. Never has coding been as needed as AI continues to trend and sustain its hype.

Coding is the power behind the vast array of functions that AI accomplishes. The better the team of coders programming an AI, the better the AI emerges. For example, the more the team is predictive to equip the code to anticipate, then the better the AI learns. How could coders not be in demand?

The more that AI integrates into every-day life, the more the job market will need candidates to create and support it. The job market of tomorrow will benefit from a candidate pool skilled in computer languages.

The New Year is always a good time to reflect and renew, a perfect time to look back at the last twelve months before launching into the next. So, before we get too much further into 2020 and all that will unfold, here’s a look back at a few of the most spectacular artificial intelligence advances and failures of 2019.

The Feats

Amazon continues to expand its sphere of influence by placing its AI-driven Echo devices everywhere. Late in 2019, Amazon one-upped itself and released Amazon Alexa Auto. The little device, smaller than a deck of cards, plugs into your car’s USB or 12v power, connects to your phone via Blutooth, and suddenly gives you all the firepower of Alexa at your command. This is the next step to going truly hands-free in the car.

Jabra took noise cancelling headphones to the next level with their Elite 85H headphones. While noise cancelling headphones work great to drown out the thrum of airplane engines or the city bus you’re riding, they don’t quit more unexpected noises; the clatter of dropped items, crying babies, etc. Jabra took a big step towards doing just that. By using AI, these headphones are much better able to counter these unexpected sounds in almost real time. It’s real time enough for our ears, and a big leap in noise cancelling technology.

SpaceX continues to use AI to reach for, and get to, the stars. Like so much of the AI world, their success in 2019 was built on years of previous success (and planned failure), but 2019 stood above prior years in several ways. 2019 saw the first time that a private company sent a person-rated craft into space, and then complete an autonomous (AI-driven) docking with the International Space Station. 2019 was also the first year that they were able to catch and re-use a rocket faring (one of two pieces of the nose-cone). This is important not only to keep more trash from splashing down into the oceans, but also to make space flight much cheaper and one step closer to available for the masses.

The Flops

Roadstar.ai closed shop after just opening in 2017. Roadstar was a China-based self-driving car company with big aspirations to bring self-driving cars to the huge population of China. While the AI behind Roadstar may have been remarkable or just another attempt at self-driving cars, we’ll never know. The company folded under allegations of kickbacks and evidence that it was manipulating data provided to the government.

Jibo looked like the next big thing in talking home assistants in 2014. It was better than the others because its screen would follow your movements as it talked to you, giving owners the feeling that it was more like another member of the household than just a device on the shelf. Unfortunately, the simplicity and/or marketing dollars of the big tech companies edged Jibo further and further to the fringe of the AI household assistant channel, and in 2019, Jibo announced that it was pulling the plug on the data behind the device.

MapR, along with two other companies, made up 3 of the largest companies storing Big Data. Unfortunately for MapR, they were the smallest of the 3, and while they were innovative in their vision for Big Data in 2014, as third-to-market, there just hasn’t been enough market share for them to become profitable. After terrible earnings reports in 2019, their unnamed investor pulled out, leaving them cash strapped and forced to cut over 120 jobs.

As we move into the new year, it’s an exciting time for innovation with AI, hype about artificial intelligence, and revelations in the industry. Enjoy the new year and all it brings, especially as we look forward to more developments with artificial intelligence.

A team at an artificial intelligence research firm have taught a neural network to write Chrismas songs, reports Hackaday.

Read the article on Hackaday

According to Japan Today, artificial intelligence research still has a gender imbalance. The industry employs less than 13 percent women.  The problem is that artificial intelligence and machine learning tends to mimic the biases of their human creators.

Read the article on Japan Today

Unilever is using artificial intelligence to screen and assess employees, reports Forbes. Over one million people per year apply for jobs with Unilever, so they teamed up with Pymetrics, a specialist in AI recruitment, to create an online platform to pre-screen potential employees.

Read the article on Forbes

According to the Motley Fool, the artificial intelligence industry $15.7 trillion to global gross domestic product by 2023. But, unless investors understand how companies are using and benefiting from the tech they won’t invest in it.

Read the article on The Motley Fool

It has now become common hearing people talking about how artificial intelligence (AI) will change various aspects and industries in every country on the planet. There are growing fears that this technology will eliminate many jobs and professions through automation of tasks. Many reports have shown the truth behind job automation especially for certain professions and demographics. For example, a report by Brookings Institution noted that automation threatens more than 25% of jobs in the US, most done by low-wage earners where tasks are repetitive and routine-based.

Despite these harsh realities, we have no option but to conform to the new changes and adopt these technologies due to the massive opportunities presented that far outweigh downsides. Although artificial intelligence will indeed make other tasks obsolete, it will also inject more jobs and change the existing ones for the better. Workers in different countries are now beginning to see the bright side of AI on their roles, and organizations and are slowly starting to change their minds on this technology. Most of them are now grateful for having robots as their coworkers because of how they simplify and streamline their lives.   

A majority of human workers now trust orders given by robots over those of human managers. Most of them are even turning to robots for advice instead of their human managers. In some companies like American Express, for example, tasks such as identifying product offers that are relevant to a specific customer segment are now made by AI, therefore taking over the role of managers and employees in handling these tasks.

AI is now taking over administrative tasks traditionally done by human managers while the roles of managers are now evolving as they focus more on soft skills over hard ones. Surveys have indicated that robots are far much better than human managers in doing tasks that require hard skills as they can easily give unbiased information, maintain work schedule, solve problems quickly and their budgets can also be easily managed. On the other hand, humans can complement them with better empathy. Unlike humans, robots can also provide answers to confidential information without causing fear among the interviewees. They can also evaluate performance of the team with no bias. Although robots and AI systems have advanced significantly, human managers still beat them in many areas. For instance, human managers can understand feelings of other humans better and can reliably provide oversight and direction.

Artificial intelligence collaboration with humans in workplaces is freeing up managers, giving them time to focus on other issues of their jobs. By cutting managers loose from their traditional tasks, AI is enhancing innovation. They allow managers to have more impact on their work by giving them time to create strong relationships with other employees that in the end impacts their roles.

Far from replacing managers, AI is improving their decision-making capabilities. The main change in decision making in management originates from the AI’s deep learning abilities. Machines through deep learning are becoming smarter with time as they continually learn from the experience of human managers just like the way managers gain their knowledge from interacting with other managers and encountering new challenges. With deep learning, AI promises to be part of decision making process in the coming days. Through the help of AI, managers can tap into the advice they can offer at any time due to large data they have. This will make managers smarter and more qualified to make informed decisions that can take a company to the next level.

From Super Bowl ads boasting the benefits of machine learning to rappers touting the advantages of artificial intelligence, nearly everyone knows about the cloud, how powerful it is, and the advantages it can provide for both businesses and consumers. Then you also have the pundits adding to the hype with absolute statements like this:

“If you have not developed a cloud-first strategy yet, you are likely falling behind your competitors” -Gartner

If you can find a flaw with that statement, then you’re ahead of the game.

Cloud-first is a brilliant strategy that has served as the de facto CIO direction for close to a decade. Nearly every CIO serving entities from the government to leading enterprises publicly embrace this approach. The cloud-first strategy has resulted in a predestined design where cloud-compatible data and applications find their way to the cloud to achieve efficiency and flexibility.

Cloud technologies are so powerful and beneficial that once an organizational cloud standard is in place, it is difficult to see favor in any other information systems. In so many ways, it has never been simpler to get on a cloud platform. One credit card swipe, and you’re on your way. As a result of these conveniences and benefits, we live in a world where public clouds, private clouds, cloud services, and a litany of cloud technologies help improve business power and add to the flexibility of organizations.  

A Cloud Wake-Up Call

Despite all the advantages of cloud computing, many organizations under a cloud mandate today find their technology, operating, and migration costs are not what they anticipated. Many IT departments have legacy applications that are not cloud-ready, plus significant shadow IT and overly complex cloud infrastructures are creating severe cloud sprawl. Other organizations can't build technology around their business initiatives because they don’t have the staff, or the necessary efforts are beyond their capabilities. For these and other cloud situations, a cloud-first approach is making matters worse.

For these and other situations, the cloud-first strategy has uncovered a whole new world of challenges: 

• The need for cost and consumption control tools 
• Complex compliance mandates and technical requirements
• Cloud staff acquisition and retention
• Increased security needs
• Lack of visibility and metrics
• Bifurcation of IT infrastructures
• Underperformance of legacy applications 

A New Cloud Phase

Hybrid and multi-cloud technologies have proven their effectiveness in the enterprise as the best path forward by adding functional co-existence to the informational technology picture and unlocking the potential for an application-centric cloud strategy. Cloud-leaning philosophies hold untold business values, but not every application out there was built with cloud technologies in mind. There are far more traditionally structured applications than not. Some applications might be better suited to one cloud service over a given cloud-based solution. Factors like security, integrity, auditing, and performance might become more complicated or costly within the constructs of a limitless cloud environment. Depending on your organization’s capabilities, some applications are simpler to leave and integrate through on-premise systems.

Application First

In this second decade of cloud, a new phase is emerging in which business advantages must be achieved by focusing on the user and taking an “application first” strategy rather than a cloud-first strategy. While public cloud and private cloud architectures have extremely powerful benefits, there are too many challenges to navigate when enterprises insist on solely implementing one versus the other. As part of a strategic architectural practice, hybrid cloud and multi-cloud approaches can properly shift the focus to the users and the type of applications they interact with.  

Being smart about the cloud means using its benefits correctly, according to your business, your users, and your applications. We can even go so far as to say that if you have not developed an application and user-first strategy as of 2020, you will fall behind your competitors. Once you’ve built an intelligent strategy, it’s time to move on to a discussion of platform and infrastructure advantages, such as edge computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, hybrid, auto scaling—technologies that are only possible with the more flexible application-first approach within hybrid, multi-cloud solutions, leaving cloud-first as an antiquated ideology.

Emil Sayegh is widely recognized as one of the industry’s cloud visionaries and "fathers of OpenStack" (he launched and led the cloud computing and hosting businesses for HP and Rackspace), can talk about everything from rising decentralization, to hybrid and edge clouds, and the significant impact that AI and Blockchain technologies will have on the industry. 

Artificial Intelligence is slowly taking over our day to day lives - especially when it comes to the workplace and using tech to enhance and fast-track tasks. There are many sectors in which AI can help improve services - specifically national health services, banking and legal services. Not only do some of the biggest names in tech debate over the future of AI and how it continues to make life easier and better for many, but we are now seeing some of the biggest tech companies now recruiting heavily in AI.

But, who is recruiting for AI roles the most and is making big steps in looking toward the future?

With AI-related jobs more than doubling over the past three years and job postings related to AI increasing by 119%, RS Components has analysed job posts from some of the world’s biggest tech companies to discover who has the highest percentage of AI-related job openings.

Microsoft leads the way with 1,964 AI job openings, equating to 36% of the total jobs they have on offer. With Bill Gates being one of the world’s richest people still, this is no surprise - Microsoft still leads the way with some of the most innovative and thought-provoking technological inventions.

Nvidia follows in second place with 837 of AI job openings, equating to 33% of total jobs they have on offer. The computer game company designs graphic processing units for the gaming and professional markets, so using systems and analytics such as AI helps with processes and development of new games.

A former Google Exec has predicted that AI will replace 40 per cent of jobs in the next 15 years. The Google Exec stated that AI will allow entire new industries to be built from the ground up with automation in mind. AI will be cheaper than human employees, however, it will also create new roles, as well as replace current ones.

Popular social media platform Facebook and streaming platform Netflix make it into the top ten with Facebook offering 191 jobs in AI, 6% of the total, and Netflix offering 35, also making up 6% of the total jobs they have on offer. Both companies are growing rapidly and are having to set new trends to keep up with technology, so it's only right that they are in the top 10 companies that are hiring in AI the most.

The largest tech company in the world, Apple, comes in at number 12 with 129 AI jobs on offer, only 3% of their total 4,574 jobs available. Apple is one of the most innovative companies in the world - alongside Google - so it may come as a surprise that they are in 12th place. This could be due to the fact that they are forward-thinking and hired the majority of their AI roles a few years back.

Another innovative company in the technology business is Bezos' e-commerce platform, Amazon, which comes in 15th place offering 297 roles in AI, 2% of its total 18,781 jobs on offer.

It’s clear that the technology sector prioritises hiring in AI, but which sectors will be next to drive up the market and start boosting their recruitment in AI?

Take a look at RS Components’ interactive campaign here which highlights all of the companies which are recruiting in AI.

Top Ten Global Companies with highest % of AI Jobs:

Everything comes with a price and with online business comes an ever-growing customer base. Businesses often fail to provide the right experience to each and every customer. Resulting in negative feedback all across social media and even worse - approximately 86% of buyers will make their buying decisions based on the experience with any business. To avoid these situations Artificial Intelligence came up with a solution - automated chatbots. Chatbots are capable of providing 24/7 customer service without costing you an arm and a leg. In fact, chatbots have been saving a huge sum of money for businesses according to Juniper research, businesses will be saving an estimated $11bn by 2025.

How Chatbots Improve Customer Service?

Customers today, expect an immediate response - more than 80% of your customers would like to have a real-time response to their queries. As per Hubspot, real-time means less than 10 minutes.

So let’s take a realistic look at the number of queries pending in your inboxes; can you provide a real-time response to these queries without automation? Chatbots are your best bet to meet the increasing demand for customer service that is immediate, accurate and “always-on”.

Chatbots 2.0

Not only AI chatbots help you cater to customer queries instantly but they also help you identify actual issues that require human support - the rest of these queries can easily be resolved through self-service options like website help page, FAQs and search results.

As per Forbes, chatbots today are far more advanced, error-free and accurate than they used to be.

Talking About Numbers

• According to salesforce the most popular CRM solution, chatbots have successfully improved customer satisfaction rate by up to 35%.
• The 2016 Gartner research predicted that 80% of all businesses around the globe will opt for chatbots by 2020 - which seems to be nearly accurate as 90% of all customers have rated instant response from business as important or very important in a recent study.
• 90% of all customer queries received by any business in the healthcare, banking and eCommerce industry will be catered by chatbots in 2022 - saving 70 cents per customer interaction. (Juniper Research)
• Not only 67% of your customers enjoy using chatbots all around the world, but actually prefer them over FAQs, search engines and human support agents for various reasons.

Most of the online consumers when asked why would they use chatbots and the answer most commonly found was “to get an immediate response in emergencies”. Next in line was to get a resolution of their issues and complaints. There is a complete study on how consumers use chatbots and how they are transforming customer service and other areas of business.

The Takeaway

Chatbots are smart, instant, cost-effective and user-friendly. A single chatbot is capable of responding to thousands of queries simultaneously and can actually provide a quick resolution to 69% of your customers, who are merely looking for a quick response to their simple questions.

A chatbot integrated into your website and social media can:

1. Improve your customer service response time
2. Boost your brand’s reputation
3. Improve your customer feedback
4. Give you opportunities to sell more to your customers
5. Encourages them to talk about your service to others
6. Review your brand positively on social media and review sites.

AI chatbots are not just a passing trend that the tech industry will get over. They are providing great value to businesses and customers both and will save companies an approximate $8 billion by 2022.

Usama Noman is Founder and CEO of Botsify.  Botsify is a platform for people and businesses to make their own smart Chatbots without knowing how to code.

People themselves know their businesses better than anyone and as experts on business cases they can automate tasks like FAQ's, Customer support, filling up a form, and collecting data from people. 

We aim to change the conversation in Business, Education, and Human Interface with any tech gadget. We automate conversations/ use-cases so that a person can now have a Computer talk/ show/ take instructions from the person across the screen. We are disruptive in our mission to be the best and are bringing new offerings in voice too!

Usama started Botsify working out of his living room stealing hours whenever he could get a chance and made the product from the ground up. During the early days, Usama acted as the sole engineer, designer, business developer, and support for the entire startup. Usama has been a pivotal part of several previous startups and development teams and is the front runner at Botsify. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from FAST NUCES - Karachi, bagging the silver medal and published a paper in IJACS on sentiment analysis on Amazon Reviews along the way.

Despite the many exciting advancements in tech over the last half decade, a concerning narrative is emerging: that machines, rather than being our tools and friend, may come back to bite us. One need only watch an episode of ‘Black Mirror’ to see this moral panic — there is widespread, and not illegitimate, worry that progress will eventually lead to catastrophe.

Certain pieces of academic research only seem to fuel such anxiety. For example, the University of Oxford recently predicted that 47% of the current market will become obsolete over the next 25 years, thereby supporting the suggestion that in the not-too-distant future, we will live mostly workless lives, with robots performing most tasks.

Humanity has its own niche 

However, there is a growing body of evidence to dispel these predictions as simplistic and too negative, and which show that the future relationship between man and machine will actually be peaceful and fruitful. That’s because there are certain aspects of humankind that cannot be replaced by machines.

Firstly, we can’t ignore the fact that technology such as AI will replace some jobs; although others will emerge to replace them. The World Economic Forum takes such a view, predicting that the net number of new jobs as a result of new tech could tally up to the tune of 58 million over the next five years — despite millions of roles being lost. This might mean the mass retraining for individuals worldwide, but not systemic unemployment.

Further, there are some characteristics that are uniquely human. Some might suggest that our ability to empathise will one day be convincingly emulated by machines, but there’s little evidence to support that. And where AI may tend toward the utilitarian and practicable, humans understand moral rules. The example of Microsoft’s Tay bot, which learnt to use discriminatory language and was offensive to minorities on Twitter, serves to illustrate the current limits of this technology.

Some argue that these are the mistakes of still developing technology, but for the foreseeable future at least, humans are still needed to ‘step in’ and correct mistakes.

Amplification of humanity’s abilities

The future of AI will therefore be about its close relationship with humankind, and there are several key aspects to how this partnership will develop. One that requires particular attention is the ‘amplification’ of human traits by machines.

This sounds like jargon, but it refers to a simple idea. A good example arrives from Prospex, a tool created by Fountech Ventures, that allows those in sales to rapidly generate new leads. The tool takes on the mundane, time consuming task of trawling through databases to identify potential leads. Consequently, the human skill (selling a product) is allowed to flourish.

Other AI programs are able to perform similarly useful tasks. For example, designers suffering from creative block can find assistance in a new program from Autodesk, named Dreamcatcher. The program is able to harness creativity by generating new designs based on basic parameters. So, if one needs a new design for a spoon, say, then the input would be ‘includes a handle’ and ‘small shallow bowl’. The designs that are provided can then be sifted through by the designer — and may include the final product design or inspiration for it. Human creativity is still a vital part of the process, but the machine helps amplify it a great deal.

Taking over the boring stuff 

But it’s not just about helping humans work smarter – machines will also take over repetitive tasks that millions of people perform whilst on the job. This may sound like a death knell for repetitive administrative, or factory-based jobs, but that’s simply not the case.

Chatbots, for example, are now used by many large companies for a variety of reasons. They tend to be positioned at the front end of the customer interaction process, and will ask questions based on large datasets, before directing one to the appropriate representative. Once there, the worker at HQ can manage the problem without having to ask repetitive questions all day, and will likely be more fulfilled as a result. The customer, on the other hand, is able to receive the specialised help they need at a faster rate than before.

A recent study conducted by the Harvard Business Review found that in 1,500 companies, firms achieve the most significant improvements when man and machine work in tandem. There is little doubt that the future of tech and AI will make the working lives of millions of people much more enjoyable and efficient. But only when companies receive the necessary support to make the most of the developing tech, and are reassured as to the benefits, will the collaboration between man and machine be realised fully.

Nikolas Kairinos is CEO and founder of Fountech.ai, a company specialising in the development and delivery of artificial intelligence solutions for businesses and organisations.

Would you allow a robot to manage your money? Well, while it may appear as fictional futuristic movie stuff, financial services providers are already doing it. Robots and artificially intelligent computers and systems are now helping in the management of your money and other financial services. According to Accenture, this trend will allow banks to boost their revenues and employment in the next five years. Similarly, AI apps that help people in their Personal Finance Management (PFM) are now available to help individuals in the management of their finances.

It is expected that personal finance management software will have grown tremendously by 2023 globally, with an estimated revenue of $1,213 million. This is a significant growth considering the market was just $837 million in 2017. Although the revenue growth in the AI-driven PFM is a considerable achievement, the rapid increase and development of this industry is crucial in this market.

Automate it

Autonomous finance, which includes financial services driven by AI algorithms to help in decision making on behalf of a customer ,is slowly gathering pace. It has shown the potential of replacing human expertise in financial decision making while also ensuring that customers have access to services such as financial-related coaching and other daily money and planning matters 24/7.

Although this technology is showing good signs already, the question which remains is whether people will trust AI. As evidenced by how people have embraced this technology, the answer to the question is yes. Credit Karma in their research has indicated that the public is comfortable with autonomous finances, even more than they are with the self-driving cars. Millennials who form one of the most significant customer bases have confidence in the use of AI in financial planning since most of them find finances too hard to understand.

Many FinTech companies are already getting into autonomous financing by venturing into different vital niches. Wealth management, for example, is one of the niches that AI is revolutionizing. It uses advanced AI-powered algorithms with big data analytics to offer suggestions on the best course of action to customers. Some known examples are Wealthfront and Betterment both of which are Robo-investing solutions. These two have however been facing competition as new types of fully automated wealth management applications and assistants make entry to the market. For example, Deloitte’s Robo-Advisor 4.0 comes up with optimal asset allocations based on the needs of the customer using a self-learning AI algorithm. It also devises the market conditions in real-time allowing customers to adjust their portfolio based on the prevailing conditions.

Personal savings and budgeting niche is another PFM space that is growing. Examples of apps in this area are YNAB and Mint, which have effective user interfaces that help users access their banking services. Although this first-generation PFM software made a statement a few years ago, new AI-driven solutions are now edging them. Some of these include Digit, Plum and Cleo which were fronted by FinTechs and other financial instruments leveraging on AI to assist in financial coaching and advising on investments, savings and suggest spending. In the lending niche, Chinese fintechs are exploring how they can use AI with digital banking by leveraging big data analytics and machine learning capabilities to ease micro-loans.

As Ai keeps improving, large financial players are in a few years going to resort to AI and autonomous finance to manage your financial needs and services. The goal here is to make it easy for the customer to carry out banking and investment activities easily, automatically and effectively. Since customers want better guidance in matters finances, introducing AI-powered apps allows banks to deliver quality and collect insights which are needed in future decision making.

I am not going to go into the long term future of AI because that would be highly speculative. I would rather focus on the short term future of AI, much of which is already taking place. For the purpose of this article I want to focus on AI-powered hyper-contextualization and how that impacts our realities. AI means that we can crunch insane amounts of data points together in order to map out and ultimately predict behavior. When it comes to content, this hyper-contextualization allows content to be curated according to personal taste. We already see this in social media for instance with curated feeds according to personal. political and religious preferences.

The result is that we become exposed to content that aligns with how we already think. So rather than be challenged by different lines of thought that force us to reconsider our points of view, these points of view are reinforced. Gaps between groups become wider and more challenging to bridge because the common ground is lost.

Now when you take it a few steps further, we can envision a world where content is curated at a sentence level to match audience preferences. Imagine reading an online article in which every sentence is devised to match your preference in tone, style, political alignment, biases etc.

Human thought has a binary nature. Right and wrong. Up and down. Forward and backward. Thought evolves through polarities. What happens to thought once you minimize the dialogical nature of ideas and make them monologues, with each idea further corroborating past behavior. tendencies and biases. I don't know what happens, but it certainly does not look like something positive to me.

In sharing lives with other humans, we run into conflicts constantly. Unlike AI, people are not necessarily consistently able to smartly predict what we are going to do next. As AI evolves, predicting where we are going to go before we even type an address on a map navigator, or what we want to buy for our home before even beginning a search in a marketplace, we become more and more unaccustomed to having explain how we think, what we want, and why we want it. AI can create the illusion that the world is made to the taste of each individual. Psychologically this could easily foment a scenario of social withdrawal and lack of desire to engage with others, even more so in adversarial situations.

No need to drive because the car will get you there. No need to enter the destination because it already knows based on your previous behavioral patterns, calendar, searches, and other data points. We have not seen the full ramifications of this reality, but the technological conditions for this scenario are already feasible and available. What’s left?

As we disengage from manual tasks there is a lot more bandwidth to think, structure, plan, architect. But do we have the educational framework to make use of this new bandwidth in a positive way? Or will we use this extra bandwidth to consume more, worry more, I am curious to see how we will evolve emotionally, spiritually, socially and politically to keep up with the ever-increasing level of technological transformation.

I do approach it with optimism and recognize the positive transformation potential that AI brings but believe that our attitude, flexibility, and discipline are crucial towards developing a healthy relationship with this new world that AI is opening up.

Gabriel Fairman, CEO of Bureau Works 

Music has and will always be an important part of society as long as human beings exist. However, as society changes in many aspects, music also evolves to meet its new needs and demands. For quite a while now, AI has been a buzzword in the technology space. It is increasingly becoming a talk of almost every industry primarily due to its ability to offer automation services, ease responsibilities and offer innovative workflows. The entry of this new technology into the music industry is important due for a few reasons. Although to some it may sound like cheap science fiction, it is true that we can have robots capable of creating songs, playing music and AI-enhanced robots writing song lyrics. Such practices are not new in the music industry.

Since 1951, the music industry has been trying to leverage on AI. The first time when AI entered into the music industry began when Alan Turing, a computer scientist recorded computer-generated melodies. Although the recording was filled with various disturbances, it was an important step towards developing an AI-enabled music business. Nowadays, AI trains itself to analyze various composition types through reinforcement learning, an approach which is a massive improvement from the time of Alan Turing. Through learning continuously, this technology is capable of extracting the characteristics of a music thesis in its entirety. You might think that the ability of AI to compose different innovative pieces of music is a big achievement, but its ability to write lyrics is even cooler than you can imagine. By training AI models with a large number of datasets that contain random music lyrics and compositions, AI can easily write music lyrics and make compositions.

Although some people have ill-advised opinions about AI, thinking it will replace artists, the truth is actually the opposite. While some may see it as a threat to creativity and musicians, it can play a crucial role in the music business which may end up being highly advantageous; if properly applied of course. In fact, AI may help musicians and employees with their work. For example, as indicated by the early manifestations, AI can satisfy the ever-increasing demand for music and promote understanding of what listeners want. In the current big data era, AI can help musicians understand the music market, and in the process develop music that’s in demand and has the capacity to reach people who actually want to listen.

The experience of the listener is an area that has suffered. When it comes to the music audience, there are many ways in which their experiences can be enhanced and revolutionized altogether. With cutting-edge tech such as AI, live performances can be taken to the next level by the artist and in the end will enhance the listener’s experience. This increases the musicians’ chances of success. This technology has also made it easy for music streaming platforms to sell their music as the listeners can simply hum a song to find the artist who sang it. Similarly, AI and technology in general will bring a lot of difference in the music industry through education. With different technologies, music students have many tools which not only allow them to stay connected but also assure them of space for collaboration on different projects.

In summation, AI is changing the music industry making it easy for stakeholders in this sector to carry out various activities. As technology changes, it is expected that the music industry will change as well to allow listeners and viewers to experience the best that is made possible by technology.