The ninth episode of the IIM Bangalore’s podcast series featured Rahul De, Professor, Information Systems, IIM Bangalore. He shared his insights on various aspects of artificial intelligence, especially its relevance and implications for business and managers. The episode focused on artificial intelligence developments, especially on the building blocks of it, i.e, hardware, data and algorithms.
The conversation showed how simultaneous developments of computational abilities, more sophisticated algorithms such as deep learning, neural nets, reinforcement learning, genetic algorithms, and large volumes of data have led to broader scale applications of AI in numerous sectors.
Ethical concerns of AI
Prof De discussed each aspect’s managerial and business implications for the audience to appreciate AI’s adoption in the industry, policy-making, and many other fields. He also answered questions on the current state of AI in the industry, which broadly falls into the realm of ‘weak’ or ‘narrow’ AI and observed how the Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), the holy grail of AI development, still remains a work in progress.
The podcast also touched upon the ethical and privacy concerns about AI with regard to the future of work. Prof De explained that such concerns could be addressed through regulation and other frameworks that monitor the AI development. He also discussed AI strategy for firms and why most firms fail to successfully leverage an AI strategy, and how they could rectify their strategy. Prof De offered interesting examples from his experience of interacting with managers who have worked towards digital transformation and AI implementation in their firms. Interested can listen to the podcast here.