Giving Compass' Take:

· After attending the IPsoft Digital Summit, Roger Aitken ponders the potential impact of artificial intelligence in different industries and why UN Director Grete Faremo believes AI could help achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

· Will advancing technology like artificial intelligence take or create more job opportunities? How can technology help achieve sustainability?

 Read more on potential pitfalls and opportunities for AI.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been much talked about in recent times and especially in regards to technology disrupting the jobs market. Some have even suggested it might not be too long before one won’t be able to tell the difference at work between colleagues who are human or a digital replication. Westworld, the 1973 U.S. sci-fi film with Yul Brynner, or what?

And, so it was that I went off to New York’s financial district to hear the movers and shakers in the field. The presentations and keynote addresses from academics and industry players around AI as well as the “elephant in the room” - what happens once machines outsmart humans at all tasks - certainly gave much food for thought.

Also speaking at the Second Annual Digital Workforce Summit hosted by IPsoft in New York early this June, Grete Faremo, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), said in a keynote that the potential for Artificial Intelligence (AI) was “undeniable” and saw the possibility that AI has help “fulfill the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”

One resonating theme one heard was that there will be impacts on society - positive and negative. And, the Summit sought to provide a range of speakers from industry, IT and academia to explore some of the hot issues around AI and what might be around the corner. Taking centre stage in the proceedings was ‘Amelia’, touted as the “world’s most human AI platform” developed by IPsoft, a recognized leader in Enterprise AI, and modelled after Los Angeles-based Lauren Hayes.

Indeed, it is claimed that Amelia can be trained to recognize words and phrases in over 100 languages. Seeing it action during live demonstration and at the Amelia City, a new AI laboratory, looking out to the Liberty Island and the Statue of Liberty was something - responding to human queries within only slightly more time than a blink of an eye via text or voice.

Read the full article about the potential of artificial intelligence by Roger Aitken at Forbes.