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The AI Advantage
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The AI Advantage

How to Put the Artificial Intelligence Revolution to Work (Management on the Cutting Edge)

Thomas H. Davenport
MIT Press, 2018
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Scientific
  • Well Structured
  • Visionary

Recommendation

Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t speculation anymore. Babson College professor Thomas H. Davenport – author of Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines – offers a wide array of examples of current and future AI implementation. In his informed, articulate view, any company that isn’t already applying AI has fallen behind. Davenport considers what it means to become a “cognitive corporation,” why your firm must develop a “cognitive strategy,” how it can apply AI and how AI will alter the workplace. He also explores the myriad technical, social and ethical challenges that AI raises, for example, the failures in Facebook’s algorithm that unintentionally enabled hate speech. Anyone interested in AI strategy, implementing AI and how AI will shape the future of employment will benefit from Davenport’s expertise.

Summary

Now is the time to realize the possibilities of artificial intelligence. AI is complex and challenging to integrate, but it will transform everything in the long run.

Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t speculation anymore. In 2017, a Deloitte survey of AI practices and awareness found that colleges, medical schools and financial institutions were already applying AI to such jobs as automating routine tasks, detecting financial fraud and developing algorithms for lending money. Another term for AI is “cognitive technologies,” mechanisms that endow machines with human capabilities. AI uses these technologies to complete some tasks that humans can do quickly – like identifying images – as well as more complex tasks. Tech companies use AI the most widely and aggressively: Amazon has been investing in it since the mid-1990s. Still, many firms are hesitant.

AI encompasses several different technologies that are used for different purposes. 

The technologies that fall under the rubric of AI include:

  • “Statistical machine learning”

About the Author

Thomas H. Davenport, PhD, is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College, the co-founder of the International Institute for Analytics, and author of Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines.

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