One thing is preventing more adoption of AI
I’ve spoken with more than 100 business leaders attempting to apply #AI to a diversity of challenges and opportunities, and they all say the same thing. There’s one thing that prevents them from solving more problems with #AI and #MachineLearning.
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They're not on the fence - they’ve had early wins and want to adopt more #AI and #ML solutions in their businesses.
They also know that the prize is a big one. Perhaps creating market cap of $100 trillion by 2030 (Source: ARK Investment Management LLC).
Some examples:
So what is it that these leaders all say is preventing them from achieving more success with #AI?
They all agree on one thing: it’s difficult to get and retain people with the right skills.
But wait - so many people are studying #machinelearning and #datascience, right?
Absolutely.
A large and growing number of us are developing the skills to build #AI systems.
Aha! We’ve stumbled on a paradox!
There is a paradox preventing us from creating more of these #AI success stories.
It’s the paradox of Global Abundance versus Local Scarcity.
Here’s what it looks like:
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More than 4.5 million people have taken a #machinelearning course on Coursera from Andrew Ng, one of the foremost experts in the field. This is global abundance.
But those business leaders I spoke to aren’t lying - they can’t find, recruit, and retain people with skills in #AI, #machinelearning, and #datascience.
These unfilled jobs are preventing the adoption of AI across the economy.
This is local scarcity.
So why hasn’t this paradox been resolved?
People - including the leaders I spoke to - are stuck in an old paradigm of #hiring. Many of us cling to an eroding notion of #jobs.
But why?
Bums on seats is a way to monopolise labour - a scarce resource. It’s often easier to do this than figure out how to engage with #freelancers, which requires knowing what you want done, and what success looks like.
So what can we do about it?
How do we resolve this paradox and achieve the full potential of #AI?
One thing I’m certain of is that we need new ways of organising #datascience work and engaging and rewarding #datascientists around the world.
And I am going to dedicate a significant part of my life to making it happen…
Some wonderful humans have shown me the power of a community of passionate data scientists to make the world a better place. Here are just a few you should consider following: