The "creator economy" is currently valued at around $14 billion per year. Enabled by new digital channels, independent writers, podcasters, artists, and musicians can connect with audiences directly to make their own incomes. Internet platforms such as Substack, Flipboard, and Steemit enable individuals not only to create content, but also become independent producers and brand managers of their work. While many kinds of work were being disrupted by new technologies, these platforms offered people new ways to make a living through human creativity. In the face of technological change, creativity is often held up as a uniquely human quality, less vulnerable to the forces of technological disruption and critical for the future.

Annika Hauptvogel, head of technology and innovation management at Siemens, describes the industrial metaverse as "immersive, making users feel as if they're in a real environment; collaborative in real time; open enough for different applications to seamlessly interact; and trusted by the individuals and businesses that participate"--far more than simply a digital world. The industrial metaverse will revolutionize the way work is done, but it will also unlock significant new value for business and societies. By allowing businesses to model, prototype, and test dozens, hundreds, or millions of design iterations in real time and in an immersive, physics-based environment before committing physical and human resources to a project, industrial metaverse tools will usher in a new era of solving real-world problems digitally. "The real world is very messy, noisy, and sometimes hard to really understand," says Danny Lange, senior vice president of artificial intelligence at Unity Technologies, a leading platform for creating and growing real-time 3-D content. "The idea of the industrial metaverse is to create a cleaner connection between the real world and the virtual world, because the virtual world is so much easier and cheaper to work with."

There are those who debate whether the new decade of the 2020s commenced on 1 Jan 2020 or 1 Jan 2021. Either way, one suspects that many around the world will hope that at some point during the course of 2021 the current year will mark a shift away from the events of 2020 and allow for a new start. For a definition of AI, Machine Learning and Deep Learning see the Article an Intro to AI. A new administration is in place in the US and the talk is about a major push for Green Technology and the need to stimulate next generation infrastructure including AI and 5G to generate economic recovery with David Knight forecasting that 5G has the potential - the potential - to drive GDP growth of 40% or more by 2030. The Biden administration has stated that it will boost spending in emerging technologies that includes AI and 5G to $300Bn over a four year period. On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the EU have announced a Green Deal and also need to consider the European AI policy to develop next generation companies that will drive economic growth and employment.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has already had a profound impact on business and society. Applied AI and machine learning (ML) are creating safer workplaces, more accurate health diagnoses and better access to information for global citizens. The Fourth Industrial Revolution will represent a new era of partnership between humans and AI, with potentially positive global impact. AI advancements can help society solve problems of income inequality and food insecurity to create a more "inclusive, human-centred future" according to the World Economic Forum (WEF). There is nearly limitless potential to AI innovation, which is both positive and frightening.

The past 18 months have transformed society – and sped up the digital transformation of our world. On the plus side, digital technologies allowed business and society to continue to function even during lockdowns – helping companies survive, vulnerable people access healthcare and children continue to learn. When the worst of the pandemic is, someday, behind us, we'll be able to take many of these lessons – and technological advancements – with us to enable greater access to healthcare (especially mental healthcare), education, job training and finance. And it provided a much-needed boost to the pandemic economy. The UN's Sustainable Development Report 2021 highlighted the role of technology manufacturing as a key driver of the economic recovery, citing the rise in demand for computer electronics due to the global shift toward working from home, remote-learning and e-commerce.

The past 18 months have transformed society – and sped up the digital transformation of our world. On the plus side, digital technologies allowed business and society to continue to function even during lockdowns – helping companies survive, vulnerable people access healthcare and children continue to learn. When the worst of the pandemic is, someday, behind us, we'll be able to take many of these lessons – and technological advancements – with us to enable greater access to healthcare (especially mental healthcare), education, job training and finance. And it provided a much-needed boost to the pandemic economy. The UN's Sustainable Development Report 2021 highlighted the role of technology manufacturing as a key driver of the economic recovery, citing the rise in demand for computer electronics due to the global shift toward working from home, remote-learning and e-commerce.

We saw it during the Industrial Revolution, which vastly improved the average living standard, but also led to poor labour conditions and environmental degradation – over a timeline that was difficult to foresee. And here we are, at the dawn of the AI revolution, where the advent of cloud computing and computer processing power, cheap storage, new algorithms, as well as new product and service innovations realises the benefits of a technology – from driverless cars and virtual reality to medical diagnostics and predictive machine maintenance. In tandem, however, we also see some negative, often unintended consequences of these technologies. They go from the rise of fake news and algorithms that favour the incendiary and divisive over the factual, to major privacy breaches and AI models that discriminate against minority groups or even cost human lives. AI is a powerful tool, and it's never been more important for C-suite executives to understand both how to leverage it for growth and innovation, and how to do so responsibly and ethically.

Defining the appropriate organizational design with which to embed AI and data-driven decision-making across an organization is complex. Multiple challenges must be overcome to align AI with all parts of the organization, from engineering to customer-facing units, and to upskill the workforce effectively. Success – even at the level of specific AI project implementations – is not a given: executives need to understand new project execution risk factors (beyond usual ones such as change management challenges) that can lead to costly project failures. These may include very challenging data issues or difficulties from continuous risk management of the AI models deployed. This only covers half of the AI map for executives.

As with any new technology, machine learning implementation brings challenges and risks that businesses need to face and mitigate before moving forward. Another challenge of an ML-based system is that it is heavily dependent on data rather than human insight. Such a system can easily lead to a "winner takes all market," where large organizations with easy access to large quantities of data grow exponentially while the smaller players are left behind. The crucial aspect of this technological change is to use the machine capabilities along with human capabilities to create an organization that can thrive and grow its people as well as culture. With the amount of personal data being continually created, ML algorithms that analyze the data can pose a significant challenge to privacy.

At a time when India is trying to rekindle productivity and growth, AI promises to fill the gap. AI can boost profitability and transform businesses across sectors through systems that can learn, adapt and evolve with changing times. Such systems are increasingly important in a post-pandemic world where scalable AI solutions may be able to help organizations be prepared even during unprecedented situations. As organisations are working hard to re-architect themselves by changing their business models and technology architecture to survive in the pandemic world, it is time for them to invest in scalable AI solutions to achieve their goals faster. At the same time, technologists and businesses across the world have to advocate for the responsible use of AI.