The expansive role that artificial intelligence (AI) can play is being valued on a global stage for its transformative merits, in plenty of industries, to improve efficiencies and outcomes. But there are also ethical questions around the responsible use of AI for a globalized society, governed by a respect for human rights and democratic principles. Powerful AI-driven technologies have the potential to be misused, and there have already been numerous studies on AI displaying bias towards certain skin shades, amplifying discrimination against women, and members of marginalized ethnic groups. Minority groups often become the unwitting victim of ethical AI conundrums, in large part because machine learning works best off large subsets of data, with the majority of input data coming from, well, the majority. While these AI-driven discrepancies are well-recognized, the power of AI as a transformative force for societal good is also coming to be well-regarded, with research from the Pew Center indicating that over half (53%) of people from 20 countries surveyed saying that artificial intelligence has had a positive effect on society.

LAS VEGAS – "Mark Minevich didn't mince words in his Rise of the Autonomous Enterprise presentation here at Interop last week: "Whoever doesn't get involved in AI will die and get phased out." Minevich, a senior advisor to the government's Council of Competitiveness in Washington D.C., ticked off several examples of companies that have transformed industries by leveraging AI technologies, including Amazon with its personalized recommendations and Tesla. "Tesla has accumulated over 750 million miles of data to make cars smarter," said Minevich. The good news is that the U.S. is widely viewed as a leader in AI. Minevich said there's more AI investment in Silicon Valley, for example, than anywhere else in the world and it's growing. Last year estimates put AI investments at $2.5 billion, a figure that's forecast to double to $5 billion 2017. Pointing to forecasts by consulting giants Accenture and McKinsey, Minevich said "AI will deliver a massive trillion-dollar economy and the U.S. ...

LAS VEGAS – "Mark Minevich didn't mince words in his Rise of the Autonomous Enterprise presentation here at Interop last week: "Whoever doesn't get involved in AI will die and get phased out." Minevich, a senior advisor to the government's Council of Competitiveness in Washington D.C., ticked off several examples of companies that have transformed industries by leveraging AI technologies, including Amazon with its personalized recommendations and Tesla. "Tesla has accumulated over 750 million miles of data to make cars smarter," said Minevich. The good news is that the U.S. is widely viewed as a leader in AI. Minevich said there's more AI investment in Silicon Valley, for example, than anywhere else in the world and it's growing. Last year estimates put AI investments at $2.5 billion, a figure that's forecast to double to $5 billion 2017. Pointing to forecasts by consulting giants Accenture and McKinsey, Minevich said "AI will deliver a massive trillion-dollar economy and the U.S. ...

For the past year, we as a society have been worried sick about artificial intelligence eating the jobs of 3 million truck drivers. Turns out that a more imminently endangered species are the Wall Street traders and hedge fund managers who can afford to buy Lamborghinis and hire Elton John to play their Hamptons house parties. Financial giants such as Goldman Sachs and many of the biggest hedge funds are all switching on AI-driven systems that can foresee market trends and make trades better than humans. It's been happening, drip by drip, for years, but a torrent of AI is about to wash through the industry, says Mark Minevich, a New York-based investor in AI and senior adviser to the U.S. Council on Competitiveness. High-earning traders are going to get unceremoniously dumped like workers at a closing factory.

As venture capital gets drawn to a new tech trend, I'll end up being drawn to digging into it as a matter of principle, and inevitably new business intel. It's an interesting intersection - the inverse canary in a coal mine - not that I am able to write about said clients here, but they always turn up just as an industry is about to explode. It happened with the Internet of Things (for better or for worse), with the post CES 2015 (and CES 2016) deluge flooding both the media and my inbox, and now the machine learning and artificial intelligence ones have begun to pop up before, during and after CES 2017. Basically, when technology and venture capital intersect, it creates a forward movement in which the funding pushes the technology to advance, which funds the development of new and even more interesting things, which gets more capital into the ecosystem. In the case of AI, there're so many ramifications it's almost ridiculous - both the potential positive outcomes of its existence and a growing fear of what its existence could mean for the world at large.