While studying AI, the topic came up of what AI can and can’t do. The main point that was made was that a problem that is a good candidate for AI is something that a human can do in under a second. Some examples include:
- Recognizing a face
- Recognizing a feature of a picture, e.g., determining if a phone is scratched
- Estimating how far away the car in front is
- Identifying if the person in a picture is happy or sad
I found this particularly interesting because I am currently reading Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. In the book, he talks about the two systems of thinking that humans have. System 1 is fast and automatic, allowing us to recognize a face in under a second. System 2 is slow and deliberate, enabling us to solve complex math problems.
It is fascinating to think that AI is only good at the fast and automatic tasks that humans can do. It struggles with the slow and deliberate tasks because AI lacks an understanding of context; it only recognizes patterns. This is why AI is good at recognizing a face but not at understanding a joke. It can recognize the words but cannot grasp the context of the joke. Similarly, AI is not good at solving complex math problems because it can’t comprehend the context of the problem—it only identifies patterns. This limitation explains why AI excels in fast and automatic tasks but falters in slow and deliberate ones.
The question then posed was, “What are some good candidates for AI problems within the context of my company?” I work in telecom, and many of my customers are managers of contact centers servicing various markets, where customer interactions can vary greatly. Given that, some good candidates for AI problems within the context of my company may include:
- Predicting the reason for a customer’s call
- Predicting the customer’s mood
- Predicting the customer’s satisfaction with the call
- Predicting the agent’s mood
These examples are fairly typical and not difficult to come up with; in fact, they are becoming commoditized. I will need to continue my study of AI to discover more creative solutions. I am excited to see what I can come up with as I learn more about this space.