Artificial intelligence sees more funding, but needs more people and better data

The state of artificial intelligence is promising, and it is increasingly ready for real-life enterprises. But there are shortages of talent, lack of diversity in the field, and concerns about the handling the data that fuels ever-more-sophisticated algorithms. These are some of the observations of Nathan Benaich and Ian Hogarth, prominent investors in artificial intelligence, who released their fourth annual and densely packed "State of AI" report reviewing developments in the field over the past year. While the report focuses on AI academia and specific advancements in medicine and other areas, there are important developments raised for those seeking to leverage AI and machine learning to move forward in building intelligent enterprises. "The under-resourced AI-alignment efforts from key organizations who are advancing the overall field of AI, as well as concerns about datasets used to train AI models and bias in model evaluation benchmarks, raises important questions about how best to chart the progress of AI systems with rapidly advancing capabilities," Benaich and Hogarth state.