Live from Viva Technology: Emerging Trends
The 2023 edition of Viva Technology (Paris, June 14-17) saw some of the industry’s brightest minds and advocates – including Elon Musk and French president Emmanuel Macron – come together to discuss the most pertinent tech topics impacting consumers today, from AI to alternative energy and future-proofed mobility solutions. Our report on the Stylus platform takes a deep dive into the discussion points covered. If you’re a member, you can log in to discover these now. Here, we highlight three key takeaways on the topic on everyone’s lips: AI.
Human EQ vs Robot IQ
AI’s ability to outperform humans (and replace them at jobs) was at the centre of much debate at Viva. Yann LeCun, Meta’s chief AI scientist, considers AI to not yet be as “smart as a dog” and suggested thinking of it as a tool that “amplifies human intelligence”.
Meanwhile, when asked what humans can do that computers can’t, Aurélie Jean, CEO of US-based data development agency In Silico Veritas, said: “You have to start with the definition of intelligence. We thought it was only analytical in the 19th century, when we talked about IQ. But in the 1980s, we decided it’s creative, practical, emotional and analytical. Now, algorithms may have mastered analytics, but [they] can only simulate the other parts.”
Stylus members can read more on AI’s intelligence and reasoning capabilities in EmTech Digital 2023: Supercharging Artificial Intelligence.
AI Moves Towards Workplace Ubiquity
The list of AI’s applications in the workplace is growing. “In the future, AI will be woven into the fabric of the tools we use every day,” said Quentin Clark, managing director of American tech investor General Catalyst. Generative AI in particular is developing into a helpful tool and companion for knowledge workers, whose tasks are uniquely touched by the tech. Many knowledge workers will need to upskill and “master generative AI rather than spending their time on easily transferable tasks”, said Eric Hazan, senior partner at McKinsey & Company.
“We often disregard that technological innovation creates many more jobs than it eliminates,” said Jonas Prising, CEO of US-based workforce services giant ManpowerGroup. Although business leaders are hopeful, consumers still distrust AI: 68% of Americans are worried about AI negatively impacting the economy, including through job displacement (The Harris Poll, 2023).
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Stylus members can read more about AI tools in the workplace in Rewiring Office Jobs in Generative AI: Tech’s New Frontier. If you’re not a member yet, discover more on The Brief.
Generative AI can be a huge benefit for productivity, unlock potential for our economy and help individual people gain new superpowers.
Jennifer Schenker, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, The Innovator
Brand-New Government Initiatives
On the first day of the event, Kay Firth-Butterfield, executive director of the World Economic Forum’s Centre for Trustworthy Technology, interrupted a discussion on AI and ethics to mention that the EU’s AI Act had been passed by lawmakers. It qualifies AI initiatives as being high- or low-risk, with ChatGPT and other creators of large language models on the high end of the spectrum. Meanwhile, small businesses with less power to affect consumers’ daily lives sit on the low end. Before launching a new AI tool, companies will have to submit it for a risk review, similar to how drug approval processes work.
Likewise, the Singaporean government recently launched AI Verify, an open-source governance-testing framework and software toolkit. Rather than defining ethical standards, it allows AI users and owners to validate and test their projects against the three principles of fairness, robustness and explainability. The results are generated into a report that can be self-assessed, providing users with a detailed analysis of their initiatives’ risks. This isn’t shared with the public, and the data collected by the Singaporean government via AI Verify is anonymised. The tool operates under the premise that AI creators are genuinely interested in uncovering bias in their own projects, but it doesn’t hold them accountable for the results.
This is a sample of our report Viva Technology 2023. If you want to find out more about AI, how businesses can use it, or about our Technology product offering, we would love to hear from you. Click here to speak to someone from our team.