News about artificial intelligence (AI) covers topics ranging from AI’s impact on business, society and the workplace to its ethical applications and potential threats. The term AI refers to a wide range of technologies that allow computers to learn, make predictions and perform tasks without being explicitly programmed for specific jobs. Machine learning and generative AI are the two most common types of AI technology in use today.
AI is reshaping the way we live and work. In the office, AI can help reduce tedious or routine tasks, freeing human capital to focus on higher impact projects. Outside the office, autonomous vehicles and robotaxi fleets are transforming transportation, while AI-powered speech recognition and generation are making it easier to verify documents, transcribing customer calls or answering simple questions like “what time do you close?”
In healthcare, AI can improve diagnosis and treatment by analysing images of tumours, pathology samples and blood tests. In financial services, AI can spot fraud patterns and help identify good borrowers from bad ones. It can also challenge human bias, as in the case of Zest AI’s lending platform that enables banks to approve loans to Latino and Black applicants at 49% the rate of white customers.
A growing number of organisations are investing in AI, fuelled by the availability of ever-larger datasets and powerful computer chips. But it’s not all smooth sailing: AI systems can be prone to errors, such as generating images of people with the wrong number of fingers or limbs. They can also be used to ‘hallucinate’ or spread falsehoods – as in the case of Apple’s inaccurate News App notifications, or Google’s search overviews that misinterpreted news stories. And data centres that power AI systems require large amounts of electricity and water for cooling, with some experts worrying about the effect on stretched water supplies around the world.