“It’s not dystopia.”
That was the opening comment from Jian "Jeff" Guan when I spoke with him Wednesday about his presentation on the technology topic that No one can avoid — the rise of artificial intelligence, more commonly known as AI.
When it comes to AI, the narrative has tended to focus on the possible negative impacts. Guan — the interim dean at the University of Louisville’s College of Business and a professor of information, analytics and operations — was about to address the crowd at the monthly luncheon of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) Kentucky at the Baird Conference Center at the top of 500 W. Jefferson in Downtown Louisville.
He was on hand to talk about the rosier pictures when it came to the future of business, so long as companies don't miss the chance to jump on the bullet train that is the third wave of AI.
“There’s a scary scenario, yes … but more than anything, it’s the good part of AI,” he told me beforehand. “I’m going to talk about the scope and magnitude, which is something that people really haven’t understood,”
The title of Guan’s presentation, though, could have come across as being slightly foreboding — “AI is Not Going to Take Your Job. People Who Work With AI Will Take Your Job.”
Note: The actual wording was all in capital letters, but it has been stylized.
'The spring' of AI
Guan told me that he first began to study the topic in 1992 when he was working on his doctoral degree in computer science and engineering at UoL.
“I didn’t know it was the winter of AI,” Guan said. “But one day, in this century, I woke up, and it was the spring.”
As he informed the audience, the origin of what is now known as AI dates back as far as the 1950s and the dawn of neural networks and the experimentation of what were being called “thinking machines.”
Three decades later, the advent of machine learning began taking shape in the 1980s, leading to approximately 40 years of build to the current stage of what is known as “deep learning.”
Guan showed an intricate map that illustrated the brain’s connections to neurons on one of his slides, which established a series of parameters. He then said that ChatGPT — the popular OpenAI platform — has approximately 1.7 trillion of those parameters.
By 2040, Guan told the crowd, is when the phenomenon known as “singularity” is thought to occur.
“In other words, the point beyond which we can’t predict with any level of accuracy, because you're going to have machines that are smarter than humans.”
So where’s the good news? Simply put: The possibilities, some of which could lead to a tremendous surge in productivity for a given business.
For example, Guan spoke about Microsoft’s Copilot, an AI assistant that could eventually be as widely used as the rest of the Office suite.
He gave a scenario: A team of workers are taking part in an idea-generation meeting. With a few commands, one of those workers can ask Copilot to create a PowerPoint presentation with the exact input from three exact people who took part in that meeting. That final product could be delivered in a matter of minutes.
“The machine is not perfect, but … the productivity gain is amazing. I don’t think a lot of businesses have started thinking about it before it hits the market. … You know your business really well, right? You just need to start thinking about it — and the tools are going to come out fast.”
