The hype around ChatGPT is just the beginning of a massive AI wave, says Edward Lenssen of Beech IT.
Computer systems that can conduct everyday dialogues with humans are just the precursors of a gigantic wave of artificial intelligence applications. The U.S. start-up OpenAI had made its chatbot ChatGPT (Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) freely available over the Internet, triggering hype. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. The greatest potential of AI applications is still hidden – but certainly not for much longer.
ChatGPT is like a wake-up call
ChatGPT is like a wake-up call because, first, the software can answer a remarkably wide range of questions in dialog, and second, it works in numerous languages, including German. ChatGPT is not so much a scientific breakthrough as a demonstration of the current state of AI research. The system publicly demonstrates what is possible today when Deep Learning is equipped with massive computing resources and gigantic amounts of data about what the world knows.
According to our recent expert survey, 85 out of 100 professionals are convinced that the intelligent analysis of ever larger mountains of data will lead to innovative and lucrative business models. Among them will be numerous disruptive business models that will turn entire sectors of the economy upside down, 47 percent of the experts are certain. Anyone who bears responsibility in business would be well advised to be aware of the potential impact of artificial intelligence on their industry.
AI will cause an implosion in many industries
The old adage that nothing is eaten as hot as it is cooked does not apply when it comes to Artificial Intelligence. On the contrary, AI will become hotter and hotter and will virtually trigger an implosion in many industries. Dialog systems such as ChatGPT are already capable of taking over communication between companies and customers in a largely automated manner. Thanks to modern voice recognition and speech synthesis, the human-machine interface is also working better and better on the telephone; 80 percent of Germans prefer to contact customer service by phone.
Finance, healthcare, logistics, public services…
The use of AI systems will not remain limited to dialog management. In banking and insurance, healthcare, logistics, manufacturing, the service sector, the public sector, and generally everywhere where people sit in front of screens, artificial intelligence will make itself felt in one way or another. The impact will be felt by the companies or government agencies themselves, as well as on the jobs side. The current discussions about the value of AI art, after an AI-generated painting emerged as the winner of an art competition in the U.S. in 2022, exemplify how industries can be surprised by the AI trend.
First and foremost, AI is a question of software
Edward Lenssen explains: „Company bosses who see artificial intelligence as a development of the distant future with no connection to their current business will be disabused of their beliefs. On the contrary, it has long been high time to bring artificial intelligence know-how into the company.“ In doing so, the expert clarifies that AI deployment must be considered on several levels: „the further development of one’s own offering, competition also from lateral entrants from outside the industry and, last but not least, the development of programming capacities.“ Because „in the end, artificial intelligence is first and foremost a question of software,“ Edward Lenssen sums up.
