What’s cool about AI tech is that it’s inspired by HI (Human Intelligence), and other phenomena that exist in the nature such as evolution. Survival of the fittest, for example, is the core of genetic algorithms. In other words, AI is the perfect arena where behavioural science and computer science go hand in hand. Let us take you through the five major principles of building successful AI that will serve your needs as efficiently as possible.
1. Sharing is caring
After learning from own mistakes, we share our learnings with friends, so that they don’t need to make the same mistakes. And, by reciprocity of human friendship, our friends share their own learnings with us. Now, humans tend to enjoy learning from their own mistakes (why would I listen to my friend’s recommendation not to call my ex in the middle of a night?) but businesses are typically not as fond of wasting time and money and hence are OK with learning from each other. When insights are exchanged we’re saving time, resources and the environment!
2. Protect your babies
Right, “share your data”, they said, “share all your know-how and business-critical information”. “You wish”, you say, being totally right. In many cases your unique ideas, domain knowledge and know-how are the back-bone of your business. Protecting your ideas drives innovation. Some of your knowledge objects – those incrementally improving the common knowledge are worth sharing though, it drives the progress.
3. Be flexible
What’s an axiom? It’s something “self-evident”. Those of us who read God’s Debris by the creator of Dilbert Scott Adams remember the concept of unlearning. In the book, it was described on a personal level, but the same is valid for a macro-perspective. Self-evident things of the past may not be true any more. Any day there will be a human (or an AI) who will finally resolve the famous P versus NP problem. Hence we need to be prepared and equipped for a constant change, since it’s the only constant we know of.
4. Be clear of your high-level objectives
Any person, at any company, within any industry should be clear of his/her high-lever objectives. In fact, that’s the least we can ask for. And, in fact, we don’t need much more than that. Because, in fact, your high-level objectives can be automatically translated into detailed objectives that can be used to steer your business and get you where your want to be.
5. Know your boundaries
Are you living in a closed world or an open world? The Closed World Assumption is the assumption that what is not known to be true must be false. The Open World Assumption is the opposite. Life is simple in the closed world as we know all the facts. When we apply AI to industries, the world is open. We have no clue of plenty of unspecified parameters. For example, you can be very clear on what you want to achieve in terms of productivity. Your high-level objective may be calculated in dollars. But would that come at a price of safety, ethics and environmental damage? We better set the boundaries in advance.