MARCH 2018CIOAPPLICATIONS.COM8Which year did Nikola Tesla demonstrate the first ever radio-controlled boat?That's the first question I usually ask when I'm pulled into a discussion about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Only once has anyone answered it correctly. Typically I get puzzled looks that say `what does this have to do with AI-driven human extinction?'Within the first five minutes, conversations about AI and innovation typically turn to discussions of killer robots (or similar dangers). The mere mention of AI tends to incite hand-wringing conversation about a dystopian future in which humanity is unemployed and battling our robot overlords. This discussion conjures up the image of Nikola Tesla in my mind, because I am sure when he invented the first radio controlled boat, he too hoped the world would change radically overnight. I imagine him showing the world his incredible logic defying remote control boat there at Madison Square Garden in the very improbable year of 1898. (1898! Talk about being ahead of the curve.) And then waiting, decade after decade, for someone to implement this quantum leap in technological capability and change the world. We tend to think of the great innovations as being suddenly game changing. Someone invents the better mousetrap, the world beats a path to his door, and the inventor does an IPO and spends the rest of his life as a billionaire giving Ted talks about the dangers of highly effective mousetraps.But this isn't reality. Tesla's fantastic invention, incredible as it was, was not turned into a viable product until the 1960's. The problem is that innovation itself does not equal value; rather, it is just one part of the value chain. Many could appreciate his invention, but none could find a path to implementation. So the likelihood of some great new AI algorithm suddenly transforming the world as we know it is slim. Much more likely is that someone inside of an organization has a breakthrough, and spends the next ten years trying to get someone to appreciate it, allocate enough resources to create an enterprise version and get it into a production environment.When it Comes to AI, the Fun Part is OverBEAUMONT VANCE, DIRECTOR OF THE ANALYTICS CENTER OF EXCELLENCE, TD AMERITRADEWe need to innovate on how we work together, execute and implement within the context of a sea of well-worn stable, change-resistant processesBeaumont VanceIN MY VIEW
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