Spikes Asia 2015: 'Artificial Intelligence is called 'artificial' for a reason'

On day three of Spikes Asia 2015, Chris Stephenson, strategy head - Asia Pacific, PHD, hosted a 'game show' – a quiz featuring, Julian Corbett from Ksubaka, Rob Campbell from Wieden + Kennedy, Jean Danker from Class 95FM (Singapore) and Wynthia Goh from SAP Asia Pacific, Japan. Responding to questions, the speakers took the audience through a study on AI and underlined why human creativity will remain important.

 

The first question Stephenson asked was about the Turing Test. Not eliciting a response, Stephenson revealed, "The Turing Test is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human." 

 

Presenting a picture of game show host Ken Jennings and chess player Gary Kasparov side by side. He asked for the similarity between the duo. It was revealed that the duo had been beaten by AI – Jennings by IBM's Watson and Kasparov by IBM's Deep Blue. This answer was given SAP's Wynthia Goh.

 

Stephenson revealed that Watson who is now helping in medical studies amongst other things is now trusted by 90 per cent of the nurses who are exposed to it. 

 

Next up was a quote: "Capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features". It was used by Samsung for its launch of the Smart TV.

 

Asked for views, W+K's Campbell said, "On one side I love technology. But I hate the fact that if I use the word onion in front of my television I'll be surrounded by 50 million ads about it that include how to make onion jams."

 

Ksubaka's Corbett added, "We don't mind exchanging data if it helps us like Google maps does."

 

A discussion on IOT (Internet of Things) followed. Stephenson explained how 20 billion connected devices are expected by 2020, for a population currently of seven billion. He explained that the term was founded by Kevin Ashton, a British technology pioneer in 1999. 

 

The next question he threw up to the contestants was: "Why is it a bad idea to study language transaction in school?"

 

It was noted that machines translate in real time, with Google Translation and Skype being two brands doing it currently.

 

This led to an argument led by Campbell, who brought out the limitations: "The way they translate gets embarrassing sometimes. Artificial Intelligence is called artificial for a reason."

 

Goh suggested that this will improve in the future.

 

Corbett added, "But they can't convey the feelings of the person."

 

Danker who claimed she was a multi-linguist said it helps knowing different languages as that translation could bring out the human feelings.

 

Stephenson's next touch point was an Oxford study which revealed 47 per cent of the people will lose their jobs to AI in the next two decades. He asked the contestants whether that prediction would come true.

 

Campbell was first to the buzzer and answered, "My mother was a part of the team that programmed the calculator. The calculator hasn't killed accounting. It's enhanced it. We have to be careful when we make such statements (referring to the Oxford study)."

 

Corbett countered, "Did the study suggest how many more jobs will be created because of it?" The host said no.

 

The last theme was AI's implication on marketing.

 

Danker said, "We won't be marketing to people anymore. We'll be marketing to device. It's good for stuff like toothpaste and the likes, but I don't want it to be the one making a choice for my car."

 

Campbell surmised, "If I'd asked Siri to buy my wife's wedding ring, I wouldn't be married yet."