Last week I had the pleasure of joining a panel as part of a King’s College School Wimbledon alumni event. The topic was “Money, Machines, and Morality: Exploring Ethical AI In Finance”.
The questions from the current sixth-formers were very insightful and they made some very perceptive observations about AI and technology and (of course) the impact this might have on their careers and the choices in front of them.
One recurring topic was one of “de-skilling”, and whether the rise of AI would lead to the atrophy of skills (“now we have Google Maps, no-one knows how to read a map and navigate”).
By coincidence the very next day I came across this fascinating study from last year that shows the vast and sudden improvement in human decision-making when playing Go after the introduction of AlphaGo by Google in 2016 (the first AI to beat world-champion-level Go players).
The quality of play increased for those players with access to AlphaGo… they learned new skills FROM THE AI, which itself had determined new strategies never before utilised by humans.
Of most interest is this: the humans did not simply mimic new moves and approaches from AlphaGo, they created and developed their own new strategies, informed by the novelty they saw from the AI.
I love this example because it’s just a beautiful illustration of the opportunity for advancement that AI offers. Yes it will be disruptive: skills and jobs will change, but this is not a zero-sum game - humans will adapt to take advantage of this new technology, and develop new skills, as we have done with all previous technologies that we’ve developed.
Fellow Panelists: John Bentinck van Schoonheten Alex Shandro Jon O’Donnell Radhika Vij
#AI #machinelearning #aichallenges #aiadoption