Hey, John McCarthy, AI has finally gone mainstream

home___partnership_on_artificial_intelligence_to_benefit_people_and_societyYou know the feeling when someone mentions something and then you see it everywhere? Well, that’s what happened to me with AI. I wasn’t giving it any attention until someone pointed out a few weeks back that it was a big up-and-coming topic (to be fair, they pointed it out as a big up-and-coming topic to me already two plus years ago). Ok, machine learning was a big part of what I was selling these past two years, and I was at IBM the Watson hit the stage, so it’s not like I was totally clueless. But no sooner do I start doing some research, a bunch of big announcements (like the one above) happen. So excuse me if I sound a bit out of touch at the start. I’m playing catch up to smarties like you.

Say it is so, John
John McCarthy was one of the founders of AI. Back in the summer of 1956 he organized the Dartmouth Conference that kicked off AI as a field.

By the time I started reading about AI back in the ’80s, the field had come a long way, but I wouldn’t say it was something mainstream. Nonetheless, AI has been simmering in the background and the age of Big Data seems to have brought AI to the fore and ushered the Era of Mainstream AI.

AI now
In the past few weeks, there have been many announcements around AI, and, with the Partnership on AI (logo above, announcement link below), large corporations are putting money where their mouths are. What’s more, these corporations are also releasing useful products that can truly claim a foundation in AI.

A most telling comment for me has been Google pointing out that for the last many years products have been pushing to be “mobile-first.” Now, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai has been saying this for a few months, “We will move from mobile-first to an AI-first world.”

Why is the message louder now? A slew of AI-based products have been released in the past few months from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook. The time for talk is over – real, AI-based, conversational agents, backed by troves of data and responsive software and hardware and networks are here. And, delightfully, competition will accelerate the usefulness of these products.

Story-telling
OK, I might be late to the party, but I have noticed a growth in the number of browser tabs I have open to AI topics, products, and people; I can no longer sit quietly as these exciting developments happen.

But I am not interested in only understanding AI from the perspective of daily news. I want to understand AI in action, the demos and stories of the uses of AI in all forms. I want to understand the interaction of people and AI, now and in the past, the movers and shakers, and those affected, whether good or bad. I want to understand the culture of AI, how it is portrayed in movies, books, and popular culture. I want to understand the science of AI, no matter how intelligible. And I want to understand how to use AI-driven tools in my exploration of AI (a dog-food kinda thing, let’s see how that goes).

The AI story is right in front of me and, for some strange reason, I now feel compelled to share this story from this perspective.

Let’s see. For sure I don’t need another compulsion I just have to write about. Expect a barrage of posts as I clear out my tabs. 🙂

September 28, 2016NEW YORK — Amazon, DeepMind/Google, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft today announced that they will create a non-profit organization that will work to advance public understanding of artificial intelligence technologies (AI) and formulate best practices on the challenges and opportunities within the field.

Source: Industry Leaders Establish Partnership on AI Best Practices | Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society