TechHearTS

Artificial intelligence will be a disruptive technology across many industries, but it’s likely to be additive to human tasks, not a replacement. “Automate a mess, get an automated mess,” noted consultant Mike Hammer famously said a few decades back. That tried-and-true phrase has never been more applicable than in the current age of artificial intelligence and machine learning, in which decisions are delivered across systems and networks at blinding, real-time speeds. A moribund, floundering business may find speeding up decision-making only will hasten its demise. Analysts at McKinsey recently weighed in on this matter, seeing AI as a transformational force that will extend and expand human tasks. The McKinsey researchers, James Manyika and Kevin Sneader, take a positive view, noting AI technologies “will transform the nature of work and the workplace itself. Machines will be able to carry out more of the tasks done by humans, complement the work that hum...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the world. Every week we read reports about the how AI will fundamentally change the nature of work, replacing numerous jobs and leading to the creation of jobs that don't yet exist. However, for many of us, AI seems to belong to a distant future rather than today's reality. But independent hotels should be fully cognizant of the capabilities of AI and how it can help streamline processes, improve customer retention, deliver a better customer experience and provide valuable insights. In today's AP Voice we delve into just a few ways that AI is already impacting the hotel industry and how independent hotels can leverage the various technologies available to drive their business goals. Booking platforms: Technology providers specialising in booking solutions are looking at how to adapt AI to deliver smarter and tailored booking experiences for guests and hotels. Hotel technology provider Avvio recently launched Allor...

In the background, AI is being used in a huge range of settings, from helping to land a plane, to getting a parcel to you more quickly, and deciding whether you get a job interview. But there are growing concerns that these powerful technologies pose equally powerful dangers, even posing an existential threat to humanity itself. Some legislators and technologists are worried that so-called “general AI” – or machine-based intelligence that resembles basic human intelligence - could develop superintelligence capabilities at an exponential rate, escaping human control, with untold consequences for mankind. On 11 September, UNESCO, the UN’s  Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, hosted a roundtable discussion entitled “ Artificial Intelligence: Reflection on its Complexity and Impact on Society ”, featuring experts from academia and industry. The talk was hosted by Peter-Paul Verbeek, [PRON FAIR-BAKE] a Philosophy Professor at Twente University in the Netherlands...

“TensorFlow is by far the most popular tool among our respondents, with Keras in second place, and PyTorch in third. Other frameworks like MXNet, CNTK, and BigDL have growing audiences as well” As if businesses today didn’t already have enough to worry about, then along comes a new wave of game-changing technologies that they must master quickly if they are not to fall behind their competitors, with pressure mounting to start using AI. . Artificial Intelligence is the most visible of these technologies – and arguably the most important. Open a newspaper, and it might seem as if every business is making great strides towards developing and using AI applications that will transform their operations and enable them to deliver new products and services to their customers. It’s easy for businesses yet to achieve success by using AI – or even to get started on their journey – to get despondent about the ...

Recently, I( Peter H. Diamandis ) picked up Kai-Fu Lee’s newest book,  AI Superpowers . Kai-Fu Lee is one of the most plugged-in AI investors on the planet, managing over $2 billion between six funds and over 300 portfolio companies in the US and China. Drawing from his pioneering work in AI, executive leadership at Microsoft, Apple, and Google (where he served as founding president of Google China), and his founding of VC fund Sinovation Ventures, Lee shares invaluable insights about: The four factors driving today’s AI ecosystems; China’s extraordinary inroads in AI implementation; Where autonomous systems are headed; How we’ll need to adapt. With a foothold in both Beijing and Silicon Valley, Lee looks at the power balance between Chinese and US tech behemoths—each turbocharging new applications of deep learning and sweeping up global markets in the process. In this post, I’ll be discussing Lee’s “Four Waves of AI ,” an excellent framework for discus...