An automaton for playing chess from the end of the 18th centurye century, known under a guise Mechanical Turk it lured the biggest names of its time such as Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon Bonaparte, Maria Theresa of Austria and Frederick II of Prussia.
Everyone was mesmerized by the technical performance that seemed to be unfolding before their eyes, the mesmerizing speech and the invitation to check out his insides. Or the interweaving of complex gears and mechanisms related to fine watchmaking. This machinery is precisely designed to create the illusion that a turbaned puppet can compete with the tactical mind of a human brain. It also served to hide the player who, equipped with magnets, moved pieces on the chessboard from his hiding place.
While making Artificial Intelligence (AI) is likely to lead to new forms of creation, production and communication; recent months have seen a comprehensive expansion of artificial intelligence variations.
When AI is just a slogan
There is no area that is spared: now it is a sacred formula that gives value and modernity to all business strategies, from small and medium enterprises to large groups. The mantra seems to be invoked, in most cases, with the secret hope that the interlocutor will be satisfied with this slogan and will not further question the technical reality it is supposed to embody.
Like the spectators who, for every control, were satisfied with the opening of the closet under yesterday’s pseudo-chess player. An illustration of this offensive communication about the alleged control of artificial intelligence: sentencing on 18 March 2024 of the American federal regulatory and supervisory body for financial markets, The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), from two consulting firms.
Based on the fact that these companies – from 2019 for Delphia and 2023 for Global Predictions – have confirmed in their communication and their promotional arguments that their investment choices are based on their equipment and knowledge in terms of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Specifically, allowing them to “predict strong future performance of companies in order to buy their stock before everyone else.”
The SEC felt that these consultants actually lacked the technical tools and skills needed to conduct this type of analysis. And Gary Gensler, the president of the Commission, justifies the sanctions imposed by his body: “Such laundering of artificial intelligence harms investors.” But not only to those who invest money.
Indeed, this ultimately contributes to the creation of a certain mistrust within companies when promised solutions would not produce the expected results. This is why the commitment to AI policy cannot be reduced to haphazardly launching a proof of concept (POC) – proof of concept – or frantically ordering graphics cards.
Demand must come from the professions to meet clearly identified needs. With appropriate project management assistance, relevant datasets and ad hoc algorithmic models will be combined to provide a tool that can meet operational expectations. Along with the explainability approach, this also helps to spread AI knowledge beyond the original community of experts.
Which is useful for the development of future projects that use this technology. Contribution AI serving organizations and business models is so critical that it cannot be left in the hands of marketers. Were they chess players in lost time?
Nicolas Arpagianis the vice president of HeadMind Partners