The Technology Hype Cycle: When does technology really become usable.
A.I. is nowhere near where we all want it to be. Yes, there are lots of breakthroughs happening, but we simply just don’t yet have the technology to, for example, converse freely with a computer. Or as Earthling founder Caleb Eastman explains “don’t drop a Tesla on the Moon and expect it to explore and learn.”
Areas where we are seeing real-world examples of computers helping us think in real-time generally include scenarios where there is easy access to large sets of data. This is when it starts to become useful.
Products like Grammarly for example not only are able to be somewhat easily trained due to the fact that there are mass repositories of human language, plus ongoing personal users’ language to use as a reference. This is, in essence, is much easier to solve programmatically than trying to recognize anything anyone says via voice for example.
Another area where Artificial Intelligence is already helping – advertising. Modern advertising is a function of data. Intelligent engines abound such as Finch or Perfect Audience which use intelligence to try to optimize advertisers’s budgets, retargeting and conversion.
This gives the advertisers a huge advantage online, a medium plagued by bots and battling algorithms and only truly leveraged by those using automated software.
The hype is real and ultimately all of these intelligent devices will become a reality. But it takes time for industries to mature and for humankind to realize exactly how to leverage new widgets. The “A.I Era” is unique in that technology needs lots of data to learn how to be intelligent. So naturally, those industries with access to and the ability to manage large amounts of data will benefit first from this technological revolution.
Stay tuned, it’s an exciting time.
