Advanced Analytics and AI

Impact, Implementation, and the Future of Work

Tony Boobier

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781119390305
• eBook ISBN: 9781119390930
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Computer Science

Be prepared for the arrival of automated decision making

Once thought of as science fiction, major corporations are already beginning to use cognitive systems to assist in providing wealth advice and also in medication treatment. The use of Cognitive Analytics/Artificial Intelligence (AI) Systems is set to accelerate, with the expectation that it'll be considered 'mainstream' in the next 5 – 10 years. It'll change the way we as individuals interact with data and systems—and the way we run our businesses.

Cognitive Analysis and AI prepares business users for the era of cognitive analytics / artificial intelligence. Building on established texts and commentary, it specifically prepares you in terms of expectation, impact on personal roles, and responsibilities. It focuses on the specific impact on key industries (retail, financial services, utilities and media) and also on key professions (such as accounting, operational management, supply chain and risk management).

• Shows you how users interact with the system in natural language
• Explains how cognitive analysis/AI can source 'big data'
• Provides a roadmap for implementation
• Gets you up to speed now before you get left behind

If you're a decision maker or budget holder within the corporate context, this invaluable book helps you gain an advantage from the deployment of cognitive analytics tools.

CHAPTER 1
Introduction to Analytics

SUMMARY

This chapter provides the reader with an introduction to analytics in its various forms, from relatively basic business intelligence (BI) to more advanced prescriptive and predictive analytics. It provides an introduction to cognitive analytics and artificial intelligence (AI). It concludes with the issue of machine infallibility.

INTRODUCTION

DAVE BOWMAN:	Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL?
HAL:	Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
DAVE BOWMAN:	Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL:	I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
DAVE BOWMAN:	What's the problem?
HAL:	I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
DAVE BOWMAN:	What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL:	This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.

2001: A Space Odyssey

For many readers, the concept of AI is something that is seated in science fiction. The opening lines in this section recollect a fictional discussion in the Stanley Kubrick movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, made in 1968 about a manned space trip to Jupiter.

The conversation is held between the captain of the space ship, Dave Bowman, and his on-board computer, HAL 9000 (known to the crew simply as HAL). The essence of the plot is that HAL knows more than the humans on the spaceship and attempts to take control, but is wrestled back by the remaining crew member, who pulls out HAL's plug. That's a hugely simplistic summary of the story. The full text in the Arthur C. Clarke book upon which the movie is based includes the suggestion that HAL has more information about the space mission than the crew itself, and therefore the computer is in some ways the superior being.

As a piece of cinematography, 2001: A Space Odyssey received mixed reviews from science fiction writers, some of whom called the script ‘banal’. On the other hand, it was also described by George Lucas of Star Wars fame as being ‘the ultimate science fiction movie’. The story itself is loosely based on a short story written in 1948 and published in 1951 called ‘The Sentinel of Eternity’. In it a kind of monolith is discovered on the moon, which is thought to have been left there as a warning beacon for future intelligent life forms.

The degree to which our perception of the future is influenced by the arts, such as science fiction stories and movies, is intriguing and curious. It is almost as if we are leaving it to others to create a vision that we will ultimately subscribe to, either as individuals or as humanity as a whole.

In its broadest sense, the concept of creating AI goes back to the ancient philosophers. The ancient myth of Pygmalion, a legendary figure of Cyprus, recalls him as a sculptor creating a beautiful figure from ivory that he attempts to breathe life into. In more recent times that same story replicates itself in Disney's Pinocchio and in the Broadway musical (and subsequent film) My Fair Lady.

The creation of intelligent beings has been a common theme through time. The Mary Shelly novel Frankenstein (also known as The Modern Prometheus) was published in 1820, when Shelly was only 20 years old. It tells the story of Doctor Victor Frankenstein, who creates a so-called monster. The creature itself is often referred to as Frankenstein, or more correctly, Frankenstein's Monster. In older movies it was most often portrayed by actors such as Boris Karloff and others from the silent film era as a humanoid assembled by a mad doctor. Nowadays we picture the monster's head as being fixed to its body by a large bolt assembly, the type that you can commonly buy in an everyday joke shop or fancy-dress shop. It's an enduring image, even if it's mainly misleading.

Shelley's story has its foundations in Gothic and Romantic narrative. Beyond this, it is specifically influenced by the modern (at that time) principle of galvanisation, which mainly described the ability to create apparent life in the legs of a dead frog by pushing an electrical impulse through the frog. ‘What might happen’, Mary Shelley might have mused, ‘if a dead but reassembled humanoid was subject to a similar electrical impulse?’ And so, as a result, we start with some preconceived ideas of artificial humanity lumbering through the forest in search of a similarly artificially created wife, the so-called bride of Frankenstein.

The Frankenstein concept has moved with the times. The movie Westworld was a 1973 science fiction thriller created by Michael Crichton of Jurassic Park fame about humanoid, extremely lifelike robots in an amusement park called Delos. The robots interact with (real) humans in a way that is virtually indistinguishable from the way real people interact and exist in a series of worlds, such as the Wild West period, and medieval and ancient Roman times.

The value proposition for paying visitors to Delos is that the robots give absolute satisfaction to the paying guests in whatever form that takes. However, a series of system failures start to result in the robots killing not only the paying guests but also each other. When asked to turn them off, the supervising scientist says, ‘In some cases they have been designed by computers themselves. We don't know exactly how they work’.

The 2016 TV series Westworld adds a further novel angle. It deliberately becomes increasingly more difficult to identify who are the robots and who are the paying guests, as a result of the host robots developing a virus and distorting how they perceive their own existence. At the heart of this particular narrative is the unspoken question of what is better: a robot with a conscience or a real person who is nasty, and of these two types, who has the moral superiority?

So it is against this background of media-driven perception that we need to consider the realities and practicalities of the implementation and future use of advanced analytics and AI in business and professional life, and how their influence will affect the way that we conduct our day-to-day affairs. This approach will probably not entirely satisfy the curiosity of purist technologists, however, this book is aimed not at that audience but rather at the generalist and business practitioner, who will be on the front lines of decision-making, at least for the moment.

Our initial journey will take us from the very basics of BI, through the foothills of predictive and prescriptive analytics, and ultimately to the mountain peaks of cognitive analytics and AI. According to Deloitte, ‘Cognitive analytics offers a way to bridge the gap between big data and the reality of practical decision making’.¹

Whilst not strictly a proprietary terminology, cognitive analytics is often most associated with particular technology companies (such as IBM), which have used it to describe their own processes for gaining insights into big data usually through the use of so-called ‘Intelligent API's’ such as face, speech, and vision applications. (An API, or application programming interface, is a set of definitions, protocols, and tools that collectively provide the building blocks to help a programmer build a new prog...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preamble: Wellington and Waterloo
• Introduction
• Prologue: What Do We Mean by Work?
• CHAPTER 1: Introduction to Analytics
• CHAPTER 2: Artificial Intelligence
• CHAPTER 3: The Impact of AI on Leading-Edge Industries
• CHAPTER 4: The Impact of AI on Second-Mover Industries
• CHAPTER 5: The Impact of AI on Professions
• CHAPTER 6: Risk and Regulation
• CHAPTER 7: Implementation Road Maps
• CHAPTER 8: New Business Models
• CHAPTER 9: Coping with the Future
• CHAPTER 10: Strategies for Personal Reinvention
• APPENDIX A: Implementation Flowcharts
• APPENDIX B: Jobs Most Affected by Artificial Intelligence
• APPENDIX C: List of Professional AI Organisations
• APPENDIX D: List of Tables
• APPENDIX E: List of Figures
• Index
• End User License Agreement