{"id":15796,"date":"2015-07-30T05:52:42","date_gmt":"2015-07-30T12:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/?p=15796"},"modified":"2015-07-30T07:24:34","modified_gmt":"2015-07-30T14:24:34","slug":"dr-steve-omohundro-and-the-implications-of-a-i-in-the-future-of-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2015\/07\/dr-steve-omohundro-and-the-implications-of-a-i-in-the-future-of-industry","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Steve Omohundro and the Implications of A.I. in the Future of Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Concerns about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) have recently gained coverage thanks to pioneers like Hawking, Gates, and Musk, though certainly others have been peering down that rabbit hole for some time. <\/span>While we certainly need to keep our eyes on the far-reaching, it behooves us to take a closer look at the social issues that are right under our noses.<\/p>\n

The question of artificial intelligence transforming industry is not a question of when \u2014 it\u2019s already happening \u2014 but rather of how<\/i> automation is creeping in and impacting some of the biggest influencers in the economic sphere i.e. transportation, healthcare, and others, some of which may surprise you.<\/p>\n

I recently discussed these near-at-hand social implications and ambiguities with Steve Omohundro, CEO and founder of Possibility Research<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Social Implications of AI <\/b><\/h2>\n

In the words of Mr. Omohundro, we\u2019re \u201con the verge of major transformation\u201d in myriad ways. Consider near-term economics. <\/span>McKinsey&Company have estimated that the presence of AI automation could impact the economy<\/a> by $10 to $25 trillion in the next 10 years. <\/span>Gartner, an information technology research group, estimates that 1\/3 of all jobs will be relegated to the world of AI by 2025.<\/p>\n

Evidence of these trends is particularly relevant in the areas of \u201cthe cloud\u201d i.e. the \u2018Internet of All Things\u2019, delivery of services, knowledge work, and emerging markets. Tesla recently announced a software upgrade that would allow its self-driving cars to take better control on highways. <\/span>In the same market, Daimler just released the first 18-wheeler \u2018Freelance Inspiration\u201d truck that will be given autonomous reign of Nevada (NV) freeways.<\/p>\n

Leaps are already being made in the areas of healthcare and medicine; engineering and architecture (a Chinese design company recently produced 10 3D-printed houses<\/a> in 24 hours); and, perhaps one that\u2019s not as obvious \u2014 the legal profession.<\/p>\n

Dealing with Shades of Grey<\/b><\/h2>\n

Electronic discovery<\/a> i.e. ediscovery is the electronic solution that is now used in identifying, collecting and producing electronically stored information (ESI) (emails, voicemail, databases, etc.) in response to a request for production in a law suite of investigation. <\/span>The legal industry leverages this software in dealing with companies that sometimes have millions of emails, through which this natural language program helps sift and search. <\/span><\/p>\n

Future impacts in the legal industry could resound in areas where much of what human lawyers do is considered quite routine, such as creating contracts. This type of work usually has a high ticket price, so there is tremendous incentive to automate these types of tasks.<\/p>\n

There also exists the overlap and spill over of impacts of AI from one industry to the next, and the legal industry is right at the intersection. Think back to the autonomous cars. Lawyers are not poised to look forward to new and weird questions such as, \u2018What if a self-driving car hits and kills a person? Who\u2019s responsible? The people who built the car, or faulty software?\u2019 <\/span>We are on the cusp of having an \u201conslaught of new technology with very little clue of how to manage it\u201d, says Omohundro.<\/p>\n

Big Data and AI Implications<\/h2>\n

Another area that is changing the lay of the land is big data, which is constantly being applied by consumer companies as they gather data about consumers and then target ads based on this information. Once again, the question arises of how to manage this process and define legal restrictions.<\/p>\n

Price fixing presents another ambiguous case. It\u2019s illegal to collaborate with other companies in the same business to set prices, and a recent case arose in which an online seller looked as if it was \u2018polluting\u2019 the space and fixing prices. Turns out, the seller was running bots to check competitors\u2019 prices, which were then adjusted according to an algorithm. \u201cWhat happens when the bot is doing the price fixing; is that illegal?\u201d <\/span>Apparently so, looking at the outcome of the case, but the question of volition is a valid one.<\/p>\n

Along a similar vein, a Swiss group working in the name of art created a bot, gave it bitcoin, hooked it up to the \u2018dark net\u2019, a realm of the Internet where people trade illegally, and had the bot randomly buy things. <\/span>The art exhibit display was what the bot bought<\/a> while roving the dark markets. \u201cPolice allowed the exhibit, and then came and arrested the bot\u2026carted the computer away,\u201d explains Omohundro. <\/span>\u201cEvery aspect of today\u2019s society is going to be transformed by these technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there\u2019s no succinct answers to any of the economic or ethical considerations of the \u201cbig questions\u201d that Steve brought up in our conversation, he\u2019s confidant that more informed and serious discourse will help us make better decisions of the human future \u2014 and I certainly hope he\u2019s right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Concerns about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) have recently gained coverage thanks to pioneers like Hawking, Gates, and Musk, though certainly others have been peering down that rabbit hole for some time. While we certainly need to keep our eyes on the far-reaching, it behooves us to take a closer look at the social [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":274,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,1528,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-disruptive-technology","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/274"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15796\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}