AI frontier: Optimism, challenges, and creative applications

-My view of artificial intelligence is optimistic. I believe the right thing to do is learn about it and get involved as it evolves. We should figure out how to use AI to better our lives, businesses and societies. It is our responsibility to put it to good use, Infosit founder and CEO Goran Mrvos said in a recent panel in Pula, Croatia. Diana Kukic Dasko (Lloyds Digital), Aleksandar Raic (Infobip) and Dean Verbanac (Intersoft Technologies) participated, with AI researcher Aco Momcilovic moderating the talk. Some 120 people attended.

Infosit has adopted generative AI to boost day-to-day tasks and operations. In Goran’s words, gen AI tools like Microsoft’s Copilot and OpenAI’s ChatGPT are useful assistants in business.

-They are saving us time with research and document structuring. When you need to summarize loads of materials, gen AI can help. It produces drafts and strategy outlines faster than we can, Goran said. Not confident about your English? Gen AI can help your emails read naturally, so that your message gets across in the way you wanted.

Still, it is not a magic wand. If you are often disappointed with gen AI output, you should probably learn more about prompting, panelists agreed.

-Like with any tool, it is important to learn how to use it. There are things ChatGPT and Copilot can do very well. There are things they can’t do. If you expect them to read your mind, you might not get the best results, Goran warned.

Diana has creatively applied gen AI to parenting, too. Imagine checking if your kid has read a book you haven’t. AI can come to the rescue, but be cautious of stochastic parroting - sometimes it might add people and events that don’t exist in the book, Diana warned.

-I think that, moving forward, we will be surrounded with more and more smart things and services. AI will power them. They will save us time and add convenience. We will see them as perfectly normal.

Aleksandar spoke about the potential of AI in diagnosing and treating cancer. The amount of research and data coming out every week is staggering. No person can keep up with that, but AI can. It could be a powerful assistant to doctors, and support better outcomes in healthcare, he said.

Dean shared examples of AI powering hotel operations and travel experiences. Aco believes the next 12 months could be all about AI-powered assistants. They will be much smarter than earlier assistants we’ve seen. In the next five years, social and cultural shifts will follow, resulting from the adoption of AI on a wider scale, he said.

Fears exist that, if artificial super-intelligence ever becomes self-aware, things could get dangerous for people. Others believe there is more to human consciousness and human experience than computer programs can ever replicate. Several contributions from the audience pointed to intellectual property and privacy issues, to data protection and the need for regulation and responsibility.

If you want to learn more about artificial intelligence, join us at Let’sGrow! conference in Pula on May 15th!