Integrating Artifical Intelligence (AI) into the operations of a business is starting to become a prominent trend within many corporations.
Dr. Dan Reed, Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs at the University of Utah was joined by Bassam Salem, CEO of AtlasRTX, Glenn Colby, President of Invarius, and Keelan Johns, Senior Director of Engineering at Clearlink, to discuss how AI is utilized as a tool in business practices to optimize data and produce insights the human mind simply cannot.
Since its development in the 1950s, Artificial Intelligence and its future capabilities always have been a buzzing topic within society. So what is AI? The panelists describe it as a machine that can perform human tasks through deep learning and the ability to adapt to new inputs.
“Humans are limited by how we learn and our perception, and AI brings in the ability to analyze things outside our bias and preconception,” Colby said.
When made accessible and used effectively, AI has the power to provide insight and draw conclusions to problems that humans otherwise couldn’t do on their own, and that’s how businesses are capitalizing on this technology.
When asked how the panelists use this type of human-thinking technology within their businesses, it became evident how AI creates a competitive advantage among other companies because the machines are able to manage tasks better and more efficiently than humans. Johns explained that AI is helping Clearlink connect decoupled complex ecosystems of data to better optimize their inventory and sales demand operations, which is something the business hasn’t been able to do prior to AI. This type of intelligence has the capability to automate and take on far more than humanly possible.
Due to the abundance of information that AI can process, the question of the ethical implications and whether humans will be able to control this technology in the future is a concern brought to the attention of the panel. Salem and Johns responded to this question by stating that human auditing and involvement in the educational training of the bot are critical in maintaining control and making sure that ethics are integrated into the knowledge of the technology. Colby mentioned that there have been three pillars of ethical guidelines implemented by the IEEE in regards to AI, which include human value, self-determination, and trust. However, Colby recognizes that even these broad frameworks present challenges because of different global interpretations.
There is still a lot to learn about Artificial Intelligence, and we appreciate our panelists for taking the time to shed some light on how it is effectively being used in the workplace. The potential for AI as a business tool seems to be convincing as it can unlock information unobtainable by humans.
Watch the full panel here:
Bayleigh Whiteley is a sophomore majoring in Marketing at the David Eccles School of Business. She enjoys working as an Eccles Ambassador for the Business Scholars Program and as an intern for Marketing + Communications.
