Congratulations on the birth of your AI Children!

Congratulations on the birth of the AI Children! We wish you all the best raising and educating them

Building an AI

The other day, someone asked a senior manager over at Google if he saw any threats to Google’s search engine market leadership. And his answer was: “we are not actually not building a search engine, we are building an AI” [Artificial Intelligence]. Every time you use a search engine, you ask a question. And from the list of answers provided by the engine, you pick one to explore. That’s how you teach the engine and became his teacher/parent.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos says: 'Amazon does not make any money selling goods'. That is really a statement to think about: the CEO of one the biggest stores in the world stating that he earns nothing from selling goods. He clarifies: Amazon makes money by helping clients make buying decisions. In other words, Amazon is building … an AI.

Similarly, Netflix is building a set of data and algorithms. Every time we pick a movie to watch, we are training the Netflix AI. We are letting it know what we like, what makes us happy, what touches us and when we are doing what we are doing.

The AI knows everything about you.

The relationship between consumers and AI is asymmetric:

  • You, as consumer, are educating the AI for free
  • The AI makes you pay for its services
  • You virtually know nothing about the AI
  • The AI virtually knows everything about you
  • Your life is getting increasingly dependent on the AI
  • The AI can easily live without you

So why are consumers ready and willing to educate AI for free and then pay their student for its services? Because of the enormous added value that the AI brings. In (Amazon’s) “Store of Everything”, the important thing is being able to find the goods & topics that interest you. Your niche: Flamenco dancing, programming microcontrollers, photography from hot air balloons, whatever you fancy. Maybe your specific topics interest only a few thousands of people on earth, but the AI will bring all of them together. And so, publishing and producing for hyperniches becomes an economically viable activity.

An AI enhanced life

AI will bring this tremendous added value to our everyday lives. In the ‘World of everything’, AI will locate and present your niche information and services to you. AI will superimpose a personal layer onto everything we see via augmented reality (AR).

One day in the future, my biological children will be old. They’ll go to a family reunion and they won’t have to say “Hello nice girl, you are looking so good” to their grandchildren. They’ll just be able to say “Hello Alice, how you have grown!”. Because the AI has projected “Alice” above her head.

Consumers will pay for AI’s help because our biological brains are limited. Dear AI, what was the name of the cool entertainer on our Spain trip last year? Where did we go to have drinks after tennis? Where are my shoes, I need to leave for work….

Many of the big technology companies are built on a thorough understanding of these kinds of new platforms where consumers work for free. This may be a good moment to have a think and examine how you can leverage the platform revolution and digital transformation to advance your organization.

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  • W. De Groote
    Wim De Groote
    Leading in Digital Business
    +32 (0)2 538 92 92