An award-winning AI system, built by Thomson Reuters technologists in their Center for AI and Cognitive Computing wrote the poem below:
And be very careful crossing the streets.
How fair an entrance breaks the way to love!
Left, doors leading into the apartments.
Just then a light flashed from the cliff above.
The fields near the house were invisible.
Objects of alarm were near and around.
The window had only stuck a little.
From the big apple tree down near the pond.
While public interest and media narratives around artificial intelligence (AI) have ebbed and flowed over the past couple decades, the conversation has been heating back up in recent years, due to advancing consumer technology and the need to process and understand ever increasing amounts of data. That buzz will likely continue into 2018 and beyond as new products and services built on AI seep into many aspects of our lives – be it in the home, on the commute, in the workplace, or elsewhere. At times an oversaturated topic, the term “AI” has become shorthand for several specific technologies – including cognitive computing, machine learning, natural language processing, and data analytics, among others.
To move beyond the hype and look to the immediate future, we asked 10 Thomson Reuters technologists and innovators to make their AI predictions for the year ahead.
CHAPTER ONE
AI brings a new set of rules to knowledge work"In the information industry and at Thomson Reuters, AI and machine learning are already driving innovation and transformation. They are embedded in how we sift through large volumes of data and content and how we enhance, organize, connect, and deliver content and information. They are the engines underlying many of our products and services."
---Dr. Khalid Al-Kofahi
And be very careful crossing the streets.
How fair an entrance breaks the way to love!
Left, doors leading into the apartments.
Just then a light flashed from the cliff above.
The fields near the house were invisible.
Objects of alarm were near and around.
The window had only stuck a little.
From the big apple tree down near the pond.
While public interest and media narratives around artificial intelligence (AI) have ebbed and flowed over the past couple decades, the conversation has been heating back up in recent years, due to advancing consumer technology and the need to process and understand ever increasing amounts of data. That buzz will likely continue into 2018 and beyond as new products and services built on AI seep into many aspects of our lives – be it in the home, on the commute, in the workplace, or elsewhere. At times an oversaturated topic, the term “AI” has become shorthand for several specific technologies – including cognitive computing, machine learning, natural language processing, and data analytics, among others.
To move beyond the hype and look to the immediate future, we asked 10 Thomson Reuters technologists and innovators to make their AI predictions for the year ahead.
CHAPTER ONE
AI brings a new set of rules to knowledge work"In the information industry and at Thomson Reuters, AI and machine learning are already driving innovation and transformation. They are embedded in how we sift through large volumes of data and content and how we enhance, organize, connect, and deliver content and information. They are the engines underlying many of our products and services."
---Dr. Khalid Al-Kofahi
When things go digital, they start following a new set of rules.
The rules of the physical world are either not applicable or are severely diminished. Things move from sparsity to abundance, where consumption does not lead to depletion. To the contrary, the more an object is consumed, the more valuable it becomes. Cost of production and distribution is no longer critical, and the concept of inventory is no longer applicable.
When things go digital, they also move from linear to exponential – a world in which new technologies and new players can enter and dominate an industry in just a few years.
Consider that each year more people take online courses offered by Harvard than the number of students who attended Harvard in its 380-year history. Each year, three times more people use online dispute resolutions to resolve disputes on eBay® than lawsuits filed in the United States. Each day, five billion videos are watched on YouTube®. For context, the first YouTube video was uploaded in 2005. I was talking to a gentleman at Facebook® a few weeks ago who said, “I joined Facebook three years ago and 70 percent of the company started after me.” Talk about hyper-growth businesses!
This is the environment that we operate in: Not only must we adapt, but we must help our customers adapt as well.
THE ART OF AI
What industry hasn’t AI touched? Reuters Pictures news photography was featured in Recognition, an AI program and art installation at Tate Britain comparing up-to-the-minute photojournalism from Reuters with British art from the Tate’s collection.In the information industry and at Thomson Reuters, AI and machine learning (ML) are already driving innovation and transformation. They are embedded in how we sift through large volumes of data and content, and how we enhance, organize, connect, and deliver content and information. They are the engines underlying many of our products and services.
In the long term, our objective is to build personal digital assistants for knowledge workers. An assistant is an application that:
It will probably take a decade or two to build some of these digital assistants – but the near term is also full of interesting opportunities to transform, through simplification, automation and machine assistance.
Research and discovery
Research, discovery, and investigation represent a significant portion of what knowledge workers do. These are complex and time-consuming tasks, making them easy contenders for simplification, automation, and machine assist.
Information overload
Our world is connected and information rich. The cycle of information creation is continuous and instant, and staying informed can be a daunting task. One of our primary objectives is to pivot away from customers finding information to the information finding the customer.
Risk and compliance.
This theme focuses on helping our customers comply with relevant laws and regulations, discover risks that could disrupt their businesses, and respond appropriately when things happen.
Making sense.
Knowledge work requires making sense of data in order to make time-sensitive and business-critical decisions. Whether it is a single document or collection of documents, an event, a work product, or an “abnormal” pattern, making sense is hard and time-consuming.
AI can help.
This is just a selection of key focus areas based on analysis and discussions with Thompson Reuter's customers and business partners. The predictions in this report dive deeper into each of these opportunities. What is clear is that AI and machine learning are already here and their potential to assist knowledge workers is being realized.
The rules of the physical world are either not applicable or are severely diminished. Things move from sparsity to abundance, where consumption does not lead to depletion. To the contrary, the more an object is consumed, the more valuable it becomes. Cost of production and distribution is no longer critical, and the concept of inventory is no longer applicable.
When things go digital, they also move from linear to exponential – a world in which new technologies and new players can enter and dominate an industry in just a few years.
Consider that each year more people take online courses offered by Harvard than the number of students who attended Harvard in its 380-year history. Each year, three times more people use online dispute resolutions to resolve disputes on eBay® than lawsuits filed in the United States. Each day, five billion videos are watched on YouTube®. For context, the first YouTube video was uploaded in 2005. I was talking to a gentleman at Facebook® a few weeks ago who said, “I joined Facebook three years ago and 70 percent of the company started after me.” Talk about hyper-growth businesses!
This is the environment that we operate in: Not only must we adapt, but we must help our customers adapt as well.
THE ART OF AI
What industry hasn’t AI touched? Reuters Pictures news photography was featured in Recognition, an AI program and art installation at Tate Britain comparing up-to-the-minute photojournalism from Reuters with British art from the Tate’s collection.In the information industry and at Thomson Reuters, AI and machine learning (ML) are already driving innovation and transformation. They are embedded in how we sift through large volumes of data and content, and how we enhance, organize, connect, and deliver content and information. They are the engines underlying many of our products and services.
In the long term, our objective is to build personal digital assistants for knowledge workers. An assistant is an application that:
- Knows what you (want it to) know
- Knows what you like (if you want)
- Knows how you do things (if you wish it to)
- Interacts naturally with you
- Is both responsive and proactive (without being intrusive)
- Is always on (but can be turned off)
- The collection of all of your professional experiences
- Available with a few words and a click
- Learns from you as well as others (via their digital assistants)
It will probably take a decade or two to build some of these digital assistants – but the near term is also full of interesting opportunities to transform, through simplification, automation and machine assistance.
Research and discovery
Research, discovery, and investigation represent a significant portion of what knowledge workers do. These are complex and time-consuming tasks, making them easy contenders for simplification, automation, and machine assist.
Information overload
Our world is connected and information rich. The cycle of information creation is continuous and instant, and staying informed can be a daunting task. One of our primary objectives is to pivot away from customers finding information to the information finding the customer.
Risk and compliance.
This theme focuses on helping our customers comply with relevant laws and regulations, discover risks that could disrupt their businesses, and respond appropriately when things happen.
Making sense.
Knowledge work requires making sense of data in order to make time-sensitive and business-critical decisions. Whether it is a single document or collection of documents, an event, a work product, or an “abnormal” pattern, making sense is hard and time-consuming.
AI can help.
This is just a selection of key focus areas based on analysis and discussions with Thompson Reuter's customers and business partners. The predictions in this report dive deeper into each of these opportunities. What is clear is that AI and machine learning are already here and their potential to assist knowledge workers is being realized.