As part of our work on our annual report on intelligent tools and AI in HR, we evaluate the interview and survey process to identify companies to watch closely. Each of the twelve companies we’ve selected this year for our HRExaminer 2020 Watchlist represents a different value proposition and core functionality across the entire spectrum of the industry.
John Sumser writes, “Maintenance. At the heart of intelligent tools (AI), deployment is a super-challenging question. Since all algorithms and models ‘drift’ (wear out), maintenance is a natural and important part of usage. But, maintenance is the hardest part of digital life.”
For buyers of AI technology, the two largest gaps in expectations vs. reality are the capability of AI today and what implementation of these tools looks like.
AI is the next level of abstraction in software and harnessing these powerful new technologies requires a different kind of thinking.
It’s easy for intelligent software that learns from decisions made by the company to fall behind what employees are experiencing and learning. John Sumser walks us through the important issues.
“It is easy to feel overwhelmed by emerging technology of any kind. The following is intended to give you a simplified foundation for understanding the new technologies that many in the market still call AI, but is better labeled Intelligent Software.” - John Sumser
“Our machines lack the capability to predict the future as anything other than an extension of the past. That means that their recommended decisions are most useful when they are up to date. So, we have to treat our machines with the respect that we’d accord an old friend.” - John Sumser
“What I’ve found instead was an amazing wonderland of experimentation. The companies I’ve covered in our reports are all charting unique paths through technology in pursuit of demonstrable value. It is a new flavor of Research and Development.” - John Sumser
“AI is best understood as a tool to lower the cost of prediction. And what are the consequences of cheaper prediction? First, more and more problems will be framed as prediction problems, because that makes the solution cheaper. Second, cheaper prediction increases the value of three key complementary assets: data, judgment, and action.” - Darko Lovrich, co-author
Recent Comments