Constantin Doinia Cristina

Group 1023, CSIE

A new company every week: inside the UK's AI

revolution
(The Guardian)

At the opening of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence in Cambridge last
year, Professor Stephen Hawking told the crowd: Success in creating AI could be the
biggest event in the history of our civilisation. [It will be] either the best, or the worst thing,
ever to happen to humanity. We do not yet know which.
It is perhaps not coincidental that the centre, which brings together researchers to
investigate the implications of AI, has been established in this country. Five of the worlds
biggest technology companies have bought UK AI businesses in recent years, including
DeepMind, which was acquired by Google for a reported $400m in 2015, SwiftKey (bought
by Microsoft for an estimated $250m) and Magic Pony Technology (acquired by Twitter for
$150m). Analysis by MMC Ventures shows the number of AI companies founded in the UK
doubled in 2014-16, compared with 2011-13. Over the past three years, a new AI company
has been launched almost every week.
A government report, published last year, found that achievements in AI have so far been
driven by research centres and startups, rather than by any government strategy.
Subsequently, the spring budget introduced a 270m investment fund for disruptive
technologies such as AI and robotics.

AI firms are changing how brands engage with customers. SoDash, a UK-based software
company founded by Daniel Winterstein and Joe Halliwell in 2011, enables companies to
work with social media at scale and is used by brands such as Virgin Trains to analyse
messages, prioritise customer service issues and isolate irrelevant social chatter. This year,
Winterstein and Halliwell developed Orla, a bot that helps small businesses improve their
reach on Twitter.
Traditionally with a social automation tool, you tell it broadly who you want to interact with,
turn the key, and hope, Winterstein says. Not only is this highly risky, its an insincere and
deceptive method of interaction.
Orla finds relevant content for businesses, analyses followers of competitors and suggests
recommendations for retweets and follows. Doing all of this organically would take hours
per day, with Orla, it takes minutes, Winterstein adds. Whenever you give [the bot]
feedback, shes learning from the user ... and will tailor her suggestions accordingly. Over
time, Orla is able to act as near as possible to how you would on social media.
Its a low-cost solution 19 per month for a small team just getting started with the
intricacies of a social media marketing plan. But Winterstein is realistic about the bots
abilities. Orla would need a lot less training than a human staff member would ... [but] she
will never show the creativity and depth of understanding a human does. You wont be firing
your marketing director and replacing them with Orla.
Constantin Doinia Cristina
Group 1023, CSIE

Ethical concerns
As technology advances, AI will continue to push the boundaries. Research by consultancy
firm Accenture shows that realising the UKs potential in this sector would add 654bn to the
economy by 2035. Earlier this month, Siemens UK chief executive Juergen Maier warned
that AI is vital to the UK staying competitive.
But there are undoubtedly ethical and legislative decisions to be made about AI as it
continues to evolve - something the all-party parliamentary group on artificial intelligence,
established in January 2017, is exploring.
Drew DAgostino, the founder of Crystal, admits his personality profile tool was seen as
creepy when it first launched in the US. That usually only comes from people who havent
used the product though. When you understand what Crystal does, youll see its simply
automating the process of reading about someone and doing a quick best-guess of their
personality. Something we do every day as humans, he says.
The tool enables businesses to create personality assessments of sales prospects based on
data from their LinkedIn profiles, social media and blogposts. The site divides personalities
into dominant, influencer, steady, and calculating types. It then offers advice about how to
best contact the target customer, what type of language to use in emails and will even write
a draft for you. Businesses use Crystal to communicate better with their prospects,
customers, and job candidates, DAgostino says, adding that the firm has 1,500 companies
using the tool. On average, he says the system is 85% accurate, which some have found
disconcerting. But he insists its simply a way to automate and speed up interactions
between people.

Reimagining entire industries

AI is already redesigning how entire industries operate from chatbots providing customer
service support, automated virtual assistants, and art recommendations, to the machine
learning that powers self-driving cars and platforms that can diagnose skin cancer.
For many small business owners, routine tasks in accounting, customer service and HR are
now being automated. The legal sector is another area expected to experience disruption as
AI offers cheaper solutions to traditional solicitors. Last year, the website Contractor
Calculator re-launched its AI-powered IR35 testing tool. IR35 is the rule HMRC uses to
determine whether someone is genuinely self-employed, or technically an employee.
Businesses and contractors sometimes fall foul of this law and end up owing more tax.
Weve built a bot which acts like a lawyer or a judge, says Dave Chaplin, the founder and
CEO of Contractor Calculator.

Link:
https://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2017/may/15/artificial-intelligence-prof
essor-stephen-hawking-sodash-crystal-xero
Constantin Doinia Cristina
Group 1023, CSIE

Economic terms from the article:

- acquired = bought
- ventures = risky businesses
- startups = early stage in the life cycle of an enterprise where the entrepreneur
moves from the idea stage to securing financing, laying down the basis
structure of the business, and initiating operations or trading
- investment fund = a capital accounting classification within a company's
records for an account that is reserved for investment in capital assets or
business acquisition
- low-cost = a type of pricing method where a business sets a comparatively
low price in order to enhance the demand for its product among consumers,
as well as its competitive position in the market
- firms = a commercial organization that operates on a for-profit basis and
participates in selling goods or services to consumers
- consultancy firm = a company that gives specialist advice
- sales prospects = potential customer or client qualified on the basis or his or
her buying authority, financial capacity, and willingness to buy
- small business = Designation for firms of a certain size which fall below
certain criteria (that varies from country to country) in terms of annual
turnover, number of employees, total value of assets, etc.
- contractors = Independent entity that agrees to furnish certain number or
quantity of goods, material, equipment, personnel, and/or services that meet
or exceed stated requirements or specifications, at a mutually agreed upon
price and within a specified timeframe to another independent entity called
contractee, principal, or project owner
Constantin Doinia Cristina
Group 1023, CSIE

About the article:

In recent years, five of the worlds biggest technology companies have bought
UK AI businesses, three of them being Google, Microsoft and Twitter. According to a
recent analysis the number of AI companies has grown exponentially in the past
three years. Seeing that all the innovations are brought by startups, the government
has taken an initiative and has allocated 270m for an investment fund by which they
will support developing technologies such as AI and robotics.
The way that brands interact with customers is changing. Whether this is good
or not is debateable, but the progress and the efficiency of this new technology is
undeniable. Companies can enhance the social media reach and conduct analysis
on customers orientation that would help the companies predict what the clients will
want or do and even make relevant suggestions for them, AI becoming a factor itself
in its own decision making process. This is not the only benefit. This kind of software
is a low-cost solution perfect for small teams or startups that are new into this forest
of social media marketing planning, costing only 19 per month, way more cheaper
than human staff.
Companies such as Accenture or Siemens support the activity of AI in UKs
economy and state that this kind of advancement would bring 654 billions to the
economy by 2035 and that for UK to remain competitive, artificial intelligence is a
vital factor.
There is some skepticism though about artificial intelligences safety. This kind
of tool is seen from the outside as creepy, when in fact all it does is to automatise a
complicated process that humans do every day (extracting information about a
person and guessing their personality). From the business's perspective AI is more a
method to communicate better with their prospects, customers and job candidates,
but is seen as a disconcerting thing for a non-human to predict and speed-up
interaction between people, especially when the accuracy is 15% doubtable.
After automatising the small business routine tasks (such as accounting,
customer service or HR) the legal area is another sector that is expected to be
penetrated by AI since there is already on the market a bot that acts like a judge or a
lawyer.
I think that this sector of scientific improvement of life in general shouldnt be a
concern, and that we should focus on the signal instead of the noise. Because small
tasks inside a company can now be assigned to a bot, there is more room left for
creativity and the employees can be valued even more. For a developed country
such as UK, this is a next level and should be adopt.