AI is important but there is something unnatural about the way every business is feeling pressured to embrace it like a blind spot for success in terms of achieving an immediate enhancement of “productivity” and “return on investment”. When the Information Technology revolution appeared on the scene in 1991, the world transformed from the Industrial Age to the Information Age and a new level of globalisation set in because of instant communications that could be made across geographical frontiers and the advent of a level of competitiveness that had not been encountered earlier.

Businesses got new opportunities for reaching out to customers and prospects of diversification, mergers and acquisitions multiplied. With the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI), it became possible to analyse a large amount of data that was humanly impossible to examine earlier. Also, “machine learning” could be used for improving “processes” and making transactions cost-effective in terms of time utilisation, which would boost “productivity” and consequently enhance “profitability”.

There is literally a transformation of the Age of Information into the Age of Intelligence because AI does add to the ability of business houses to have a peek into the future and read the ‘risks and opportunities’ ahead of others. Analysis of what was available in the public domain always helped to produce “intelligence” that could provide this insight. Analysis is the instrument that allowed for the advantage of human imagination and far-sight to be built into AI applications.

Digitisation in general and AI in particular has produced a new socio-economic atmosphere that is intensive for launching start-ups and innovating “products” and “services”. On the other hand, in the strategic sphere, it has allowed “proxy wars” to replace open military attacks- social media emerging as a particularly powerful instrument of combat. Misinformation, “deepfakes” and indoctrination are used for narrative building against a regime.

They were affecting people’s lives by exposing them to newer kinds of cyber fraud and also creating a new risk profile for businesses. Just as Information Technology fundamentally altered the lifestyle of people, AI is likely to impact the cultural outlook of society- creating new norms for businesses, interpersonal interactions and even social values to an extent.

The Information Age had mandated that being well-informed was the key to success in any field and Artificial Intelligence has further added to the importance of being aware of what was happening within the society and also in the world outside.

Business-customer relations, people’s approach to the ruling elite and life in the universities are all impacted by AI offerings. “Writing assistants” are helping the “cost-effective” management of organisations. What has gained in importance is the discipline of accepting and acting only on reliable information. One should not run into the erroneous belief that whatever appeared on the internet is trustworthy. There are both promises and perils associated with AI and this is a sobering thought for all well-informed people.

It is interesting to recall that the awardees of the Nobel Prize in Physics this year are two pioneers of Information Technology- John Hopfield of Princeton University and Geoffrey Hinton of the University of Toronto. Hinton warned that AI -which he compared with “another Industrial Revolution” - could produce unforeseen consequences creating a situation where ‘things could get out of control’. Hopfield was even more forthright in declaring at a university Conclave that “AI could create an apocalypse”.

Hinton praised GPT4-an AI offering- saying that “if I want to know the answer to anything I would just ask it”, but added with a twist that ‘I do not totally trust it because it can hallucinate’. AI is subject to the fundamental principle of ‘garbage in garbage out’ that did not apply to human intelligence because the latter could invoke ‘logic’, ‘power of recall’ and ‘imagination’ which were not available to the former while absorbing information.

AI applications are situation-specific, anchored on processes and meant to produce a long-term gain for the organisation. They are used after deep consideration and planning and have a strategic perspective- there is nothing tactical about them.

In the times ahead, successful CEOs would be the ones who were well-versed in AI and the personnel working for them would be individuals who had been up-skilled about AI applications- even though they might not be “technologists” themselves. The new-age businesses would be different from the traditional-looking ones in as much as they would be far more competent and aggressive about exploring the ‘opportunities’ and averting the ‘risks’.

(Written by a former Director of the Intelligence Bureau)