Weekly AI Digest: McKinsey Talks About AI Misconceptions

Last week, I talked about a common misconception about Artificial Intelligence: all AI technology is a black box. While this may be true for some instances, this isn’t the case for all forms of AI. There are solutions where you can easily identify why a particular conclusion was made, which can be particularly helpful for compliance purposes or audits.

As a continuation of this topic about AI misconceptions, there was a podcast from McKinsey last week that provided a fresh perspective and updated research to common AI myths. McKinsey’s Simon London interviewed Senior Partner Peter Breuer and MGI Partner Michael Chui on their opinions about how AI is perceived and how current research is shaping the way businesses and consumers use AI. Here were some of the areas they discussed:

As you can see, some of these topics aren’t new (especially self-driving cars and robotics). However, Breuer and Chui provide a fresh updated look on each of these particular areas. The ability to separate AI hype from reality is becoming increasingly important today. For example, when it comes to choosing the right AI solution for your company, Michael Chui says this:

One of the things that’s easy to do when there’s that much hype is to listen to a salesperson and buy what’s in their bag, to use a term. Actually, what’s incredibly important is to look at your own business, understand where you want to compete and understand where this technology can create the most value for you. It might be in an operations case like predictive maintenance if you’re competing on the base of your operations. If you’re a sales-and-marketing-oriented organization, then perhaps the next product to buy or marketing mix or one of these other problems might be the place where AI can have the most impact. So looking across the broad portfolio and understanding where you should focus your energies is incredibly valuable. – Michael Chui, McKinsey Global Institute Partner

Here’s the transcript, or you can listen to the full interview here.

Here’s some other interesting reads from last week:

• AI APIs – Dead Simple AI
  Ever consider an AI strategy using API’s? Quickly augment your tech with AI so it can see, speak, understand, and more. (Source: Forrester)
• Can Artificial Intelligence Learn to Scare Us?
  In the spirit of Halloween last week, meet Shelly, an AI horror story Twitter bot. She wants to write a horror story with you, one tweet at a time. (Source: MIT News)
• AI Could Save Television Advertising with Advanced Personalization
  The use cases for AI and advertising extend beyond your computer screen. Read more about the future of programmatic TV. (Source: VentureBeat)