The sense of a slow but steady transition from hype to pragmatism was palpable during the two-day conference in Manhattan.
The eighth annual AI Summit New York was held at the Javits Center in Manhattan this week. / Adobe Stock
Just over one year ago, OpenAI released ChatGPT. The event ushered in a wave of excitement and fear about AI, and also prompted legions of companies to try to cash in on the new technology.
The past year could well be remembered as the year in which the AI hype cycle peaked – a period filled with rhetoric about the technology’s potential to usher in a technological Golden Age for humanity, as well as headlines about the existential risk which some believe it could present. During these sometimes disorienting early days, many businesses have struggled to understand how they can adopt AI in a manner that will be both productive and responsible.
We may now be starting to move into a more sober and practical phase of the AI Revolution. Instead of more sensationalism, the coming year could bring a more pragmatic understanding of the real-world strengths and weaknesses of AI, enabling businesses to actually integrate the technology into their operations in a sensible manner rather than rushing out a new AI product simply because it’s the trendy thing to do. AI could come to be regarded as just another tool rather than the harbinger of utopia or dystopia. This is often how social adoption of major new technology unfolds: that which was once the cause of so much excitement and fear gradually becomes a mundane feature of everyday life.
Advertisement
Evidence that this transition is indeed taking place with AI has been on display over the past two days at a small conference in Manhattan called the AI Summit New York. Now in its eighth consecutive year, the conference is focused on the commercial applications of AI.
Braving the city’s cold conditions, hundreds of conference-goers have been congregating in a gymnasium-like space to network, promote their businesses, take selfies with a Buddy the Elf lookalike (who’s in full costume), play with some AI-powered gadgets and learn about the current state of the AI industry. The Drum has been on the ground at the conference since yesterday morning; here are some key themes we’ve observed:
Safety and trust are top-of-mind: Many panelists speaking at the AI Summit New York have underscored the need for businesses to develop effective safeguards around the use of AI in order to retain the trust of their audiences.
AI is facing something of a PR problem: The technology is rapidly advancing, but many experts and laypeople are concerned about the pace at which it’s developing. According to research from Deloitte that was shared during a panel on Thursday, the average customer experiences a 144% drop in trust towards a brand after learning that that brand is using AI.
In other words, most people seem to have trust issues when it comes to AI. And no wonder, when so many headlines over the past year have advertised the potential for AI to annihilate humanity and when so many of us have been raised on films and novels depicting AI-fueled apocalypse.
Businesses using AI, according to some speakers at this week’s AI Summit, have a responsibility to bridge that gap in trust through education and meticulous attention to safety. “We all need to create trust in AI, which is easier said than done,” Jay Dawani, CEO and co-founder of computing company Lemurian Labs, said onstage yesterday.
Brace yourself for regulation: The emphasis on safety is unsurprising in light of the fact that governments across the world have been taking steps over the past year to control the development and deployment of AI. US President Joe Biden, for example, signed an executive order on October 30, which, among other things, requires AI companies to share the results of their safety tests with the federal government. Across the Atlantic, lawmakers are currently in the process of negotiating the terms for the European Union’s proposed AI Act.
Advertisement
Speakers at the AI Summit New York have, therefore, been encouraging attendees using AI to prepare themselves for inevitable government oversight of the technology. “You can pretty much bet that what you’re going to see in the next year is a whole raft of legislation around the use of generative AI in enterprises,” Michael Moore, senior director of strategy and innovation at software company Neo4j, said onstage on Wednesday, “so now is a good time to start thinking about governance.”
While the prospect of regulation has been causing mixed reactions throughout the private sector in recent months, one speaker at this week’s conference expressed an optimistic outlook: “Regulation … can be a framework for how to [deploy] AI responsibly,” Michelle Rosen, general counsel at data governance company Collibra, said during a panel on Wednesday. She added that regulation can also “engender trust” around the currently contentious subject of AI.
Step up or sit down: Another major talking point at the conference has been the notion that businesses can either start educating themselves about AI, and deploying the technology across their organizations or risk being outpaced by other, more forward-thinking competitors.
Advertisement
There seems to be a pervasive and sometimes unnerving feeling – both within this particular conference and throughout much of the private sector – that a starting gun was fired with the release of ChatGPT, signaling the beginning of a new, critical and complex race into the future. Many businesses, caught off-guard by the firing of that starting gun, are now scrambling to acquire the skills and resources that they need in order to compete in the AI race.
“It’s not so much that I’m worried about AI replacing me, I’m worried about another human using AI replacing me,” Deloitte Digital senior experience officer Amelia Dunlop said during a panel on Thursday morning.
For more on the latest happenings in AI, web3 and other cutting-edge technologies, sign up for The Emerging Tech Briefing newsletter.