Man-AI Symbiosis; The need for Interdependence.

What comes to mind when the term Artificial Intelligence (AI) is mentioned. Some might think of cyborg characters from their favourite Sci-fi movie, Many might think of self controlled and all knowing machines that run everyday human activities exceeding human capabilities. Few may talk about complex and sophisticated Machine Learning models and Algorithms that continuously learn from previous and present output from Humans behavioural data and shed light to trends that would take man a thousand years to identify. Sometimes I even get a thought flash of the imagery of Elon Musk and the future of Automation and AI when I think of this concept.

Although, this article doesn't aim at correcting any notion because their are no rights or wrongs when it comes to a developing concept such as AI but it aims at shedding light to a rather more intuitive perspective on AI and it's development; Man-AI Symbiosis, The Holy grail of AI research.

So let's jump right into the definition of terms, what is supposedly meant by Man-AI symbiosis and why is there a need for interdependence.

Symbiosis in it's simplest form is a relationship between two entities where both parties gain from each other, something like how we breathe in oxygen for respiration and how plants use the output, carbon dioxide for photosynthesis and give us oxygen right back (if it's all I get from my High school biology class then I'm satisfied 😂)

Symbiosis forms the basis for any Equilibrium, I would simply say it's a dual transverse transaction of value. Keep in mind, the key point here is Equilibrium.

So what then is the test metric for the improvement and performance of AI. It is not news that Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is applied to almost all works of life and business is no different. It's application holds no bound be it food production, Health, Education, Transportation and of course Tech, and AI has continued to prove worthy of the challenge and some what delivers. Businesses and organizations understands it's potency, and they mean business by investing heavily in the development of AI systems to better their business.

Shockingly, A research published in recent times hints that about only 10% of the companies that invest in AI yield a fair amount of profit on investment despite the millions of Dollars of should I say billions of Naira invested. This definitely poses a problem.

The Problem statement is quite overwhelming and seem complex but the solution is very intuitive and far from complex. The answer is lies in the open secrets of a healthy relationship; Equilibrium.

So what are these 10% businesses doing differently. The Top 10% as I like to say look into their people and ask, How do AI work in harmony with our people, not as against each other and not Individually but together.

Let's take some case studies; During the Covid-19 pandemic. It's typical to walk into a retail store and find empty shelves or the product you need been unavailable. This is due to the fact that demand exceeded supply and consumers demand pattern changed rapidly, This left all players in the production-delivery chain clueless. But Businesses that had a strong inter-relationship with AI found a way for AI to help predict the best supplier path, what products should be where and by how much. How then do Humans come in, it's obvious that the machine can't understand the human nature of panic buying and stocking or why there is a need for a large quantity of liquor being diverted to making sanitizers when both products are in massive demand during the pandemic, here Humans apply moral and emotional judgements in decision making. Our Top 10% here include Alibaba, Amazon and so on.

Another Instance is from an American based Healthcare Company, Humana. The Team at Humana built an AI system that helps a medical personnel attend to patients better over the phone by reading the tone and speech pattern of both humans and make suggestions, these suggestions may be like, Stop and listen more to the patient, Pay attention to detail or be more sympathetic. In return the personnel identifies helpful suggestions and most importantly the machine continues learning from the data in real time. The effect of this beautiful tech friend is that the client gets the best service and the Expert gets to learn about him/her self. I guess making a happy customer within the constraints of business equals profit.

In both cases, AI performed different roles, In the case of the producer -distribution system, AI took a more creative role. It looked at complex unstructured data and laid out the best possible option while in the Humana AI system case, AI acted as a recommender. Like real life relationships, Man - AI relationship is Dynamic, Just like you don't have same relationship with your colleagues, your spouse or your family. Artificial Intelligence could even take an evaluator role and help humans perform better, be it Sports, Academics, Career or what so ever. In order for us to get the best out of AI, it needs to be applied in the right proportion and in the right places. We advance AI by Machine Learning based on human made data. So it's obvious that one's learning is a positive influence on the other's learning.

We all know how sophisticated AI tech can take out any Chess Master. It's better to see how any Chess Master assisted by AI tech can take out any machine or any Chess Master. Such a sweet spot. This is because AI does what it does best running through data, finding trends and solving complex problems. Man brings to the table creativity, moral and emotional judgement and very importantly context. It's Worthy to note that the Heart of AI is an iterative feedback loop not a decisive machine.

Indeed AI and Man makes good business.

I'm FranklyCypher and I'm just Saying