How to overcome the limitations of AI Posted on : Feb 17 - 2020

AI may not become the super-intelligent tool people envisioned, at least not in the near term. But that doesn't mean enterprises can't use AI in some valuable ways.

The 2010s gave rise to a number of tech bubbles, and the threat of those bubbles bursting in 2020 is resurfacing nightmares for some in the tech community of dot-com-era busts. One such bubble could be AI.

Yet, some of today's most successful tech companies -- Google chief among them -- grew out of the shattered landscape of the post-dot-com tech scene. The same pattern could play out in AI. Even if the current AI bubble does burst, there will most likely continue to be successful companies offering impactful tools.

Some experts claim we are in an "AI autumn," as the technology that once was feared for its potential to wipe out broad swaths of jobs has fallen short of its expected potential in many categories. Yet, underestimating the benefits of AI is a huge mistake, as various machine learning technologies are already providing value to businesses. But, given the limitations of AI, how can we get to a future where the technology has the world-changing impact that was previously expected?

AI's limitations start with intelligence

Google's AlphaGo Zero forced the current world champion of the game Go into early retirement. In Lee Se-dol's own words, AI is "an entity that cannot be defeated." Using reinforcement learning, the AI played millions of games against itself at superhuman speed -- a number humans can't match in a lifetime of gameplay. The hardware costs for AlphaGo Zero also go up to $25 million.

However, the new world champion would fall flat on its face with the tiniest change to the game's rules. It also can't use its knowledge to master any other game. Humans are superior at applying existing knowledge to new tasks with limited data. This is something most AI pioneers agree upon.

"Current AI algorithms have enormous data requirements to learn the simplest tasks, and that puts a strict restriction on where they can be applied," said Abhimanyu, co-founder and CEO of Agara, which analyzes voice with the aid of AI to augment customer support operators. "While neural networks show superhuman performance, their predictions are sometimes wildly incorrect, so much that a human would never make a similar mistake." View More