The Future is Here
The future is here, the sci-fi films of the past are no longer so far-fetched. On Friday May 11, 2019 The Chamber of Commerce for Greater Montgomery County held a presentation at the William Penn Inn on Artificial Intelligence. Speakers included Dario Salvucci PhD from Drexel University and David Ateek from Microsoft AI. The event was moderated by Gummi Sigurdarson from Redknight Marketing. AI is already a part of our daily lives. The two speakers explained how it got to this point and where it will go in the future. They described how important AI is and will continue to be for every business and how it can be used successfully. The event was attended by over 50 Montgomery County business owners and executives. There was a wide variety of industries being represented at the event and AI technology is relevant in helping all of them.
Dario Salvucci gave a brief history of Artificial Intelligence and went on to explain practical uses for it. AI computers first emerged back in the 1940s. In 1997 Deep Blue a chess computer, beat the reigning world chess champion in a six game series. A real life example he gave on AI being used is for restaurants determining why people are not waiting to be seated. AI can run the various factors and determine what the most likely reason is people are leaving and not waiting for a table. AI can be used to help business determine what factors they need to focus on to be successful. It allows insight on issues that may be effecting your business.
David Ateek from Microsoft AI spoke on the current uses and how AI will be used in the future. He explained how this is a 3.9 trillion dollar industry. He discussed how using AI is not only possible for large companies but small companies can use it as well. The main trend that he sees is companies using it to target specific individual people. Rather than just sending out a general mailer, you can use AI to email people and ask them personalized questions. AI can also be used to target people’s interests. Netflix use of AI was an example he gave. They suggest movies and TV shows you may like based off of past movies and TV shows you have watched in the past. David also explained that AI will create jobs in the future. The jobs people hold may change but there will still be a need for people to fix the AI programs. People will also need to do the programming for the AI systems. He reassured everyone that fear of job loss due to AI is unnecessary.