Tag Archives: adobe

🔥🔥Artificial intelligence more profound than electricity or fire.

A deep dive into artificial intelligence this week looking at some of the announcements about what is possible today as well as a look into the future disruption of the workplace.

Possible today.

The possibilities from artificial intelligence are picking up steam again (did it ever really stop?).

Airing on YouTube later today, Google CEO, Sundar Pichai and Youtube CEO Susan Wojcicki are interviewed on the successes and challenges tech is bringing to the workforce today.

We already know one soundbite from Sundar in the interview:

Artificial intelligence will be more profound than electricity or fire.

He also talked about how much we already use artificial intelligence in our day to day lives. Just yesterday, someone was stunned at how easily I could find a photo from a few years ago thanks to Google Photo’s ability to recognise objects in a photo.

Popular definition of artificial intelligence remains something out of a Jetsons cartoon though and this definition has been generations in the making. Rosie the robot, from the aforementioned cartoon first appeared all the way back in 1962. The result is that stories of what artificial intelligence can do in discrete situations get extrapolated beyond what is actually possible.

What is possible today though is still astounding.

Microsoft recently showed that artificial intelligence can imagine a bird from a short piece of text: “Create a bird that is red and white with a very short beak.”

The result is the image below.

There is clearly plenty of imagination going on in that photo – nowhere was the shape of the bird mentioned, nor that it should be placed on a branch.

However, the researchers showed that this imagination came from historical knowledge of vast numbers of photos viewed. More images showed birds on a branch than flying. So really this is more literal imagination and human-like imagination. When the researchers suggested drawing a bus floating on a lake, it struggled.

This still opens up potential new tools bringing new opportunities. This for example might eventually change the meaning of stock photography or allow Photoshop to fix images quickly.

Just last week, Photoshop rolled out an AI tool to select objects within an image – something that was a laborious task in the past.

Some might contend that it cannot do it as well as if it was done manually and that is probably true but it is unlikely to be noticeable in most scenarios.

Even today things go wrong with photo editing with Vanity Fair recently giving Oprah three hands – something a future AI might be able to warn of or prevent completely.

Tomorrow?

Whilst there are plenty of opportunities with artificial intelligence, perhaps the biggest fear is around the workplace with people imagining upheavals on a much larger scale to the disruption of the textile industry in Great Britain as factories came online.

The World Economic Forum have released an excellent report looking at the future of the workplace and how jobs might transition in the future. Download it here.

Some of the highlights:

  • Women are more affected by this disruption than men (57% of jobs disrupted)
  • Government, trade bodies, companies and individuals will all need to work together to minimise disruption
  • Administrative and production roles are expected to see the most upheaval by 2026
  • Something that always gets overlooked is the impact on leadership roles. How will those change? The Harvard Business Review takes a look.

One aspect that is already changing is the ability to make better and faster decisions based on sifting through the vasts amount of data that companies now generate.

Here bias may have an impact on businesses. Artificial Intelligence has been shows to have the biases of their programmers built into them. As companies adopt uniform technology platforms, their ability to make unique decisions that outperform competitors may reduce, making it even more important to understand how decisions were came to.

internet marketing trends in 2010

hotspots in 2010At the end of each year I usually jot down some areas within online marketing that I think are worth keeping a closer eye on the following year and usually easily come up with 3 or 4.

Albeit a bit late posting, 2010 is looking like it will be a year of accelerating change in online marketing.

Here’s some of the areas I am thinking about:

1. Mobile

With the growth of smartphones and in particular the success of the iPhone and Android; 2010 is promising the return of the old guard in the mobile space with Microsoft and Nokia talking about major improvements to their devices so mobile data usage can only continue its acceleration in usage. Add the launch of a tonne of new ereaders; the growth of netbooks and now the launch of the new iPad and it is no wonder that I think mobile is the number one place for innovation in internet marketing in 2010.

Of course, everyone jokes it is always the year of mobile every year so in that sense 2010 is no different. But I don’t remember seeing as much potential in mobile marketing since the launch of mobile data services circa 2003 (though.. umm.. yes that did flop. Big time).

Still, although the answers to mobile marketing are not there yet; ads are being delivered and general usage is growing quickly – Admob released some statistics at the end of last year which illustrate this growth: In September 2007 AdMob had 1.6 billion ad requests, in September 2008 5.1 billion, and in September 2009 10.2 billion.

2. Social Media Marketing
The hottest topic and growth area of them all in 2009 – it is hard to see this juggernaut stopping in 2010. Expect to see some serious advances in metrics and marketing technology in 2010.

3. Video
Having worked in the video ad space for several years before Silverpop this seems like something that has been around for a decade. 2010 might be too soon but expect to see HTML 5 play its role in ads both in email and on the web over time and less flash (which you should not have been using inside emails anyhow right?) .

4. Location
Each year that goes by marketers get hit with more data to deal with online. Did you think it was going to get better in 2010? Not a chance. Real time location data is the latest piece of data to get your head around and deliver better more engaging and relevant messaging. Right now foursquare; Gowalla and MyTown (at least in the US) are leading the way in consumer usage but I expect to see Facebook and Twitter continue to roll out location based technologies integrated into their platforms for a significant increase in both usage and opportunities for marketers to take advantage.

5. Ad Optimisation
Companies like the Rubicon Project are delivering better returns for publishers and better results for advertisers by matching unsold publisher inventory with the right ad all in real time. This type of automation significantly improves the efficiency of buying and selling ads and should deliver better results at the same time.

Some others: Augmented Reality – still a way to go I think. Real time ad testing – with Adobe buying Omniture I fully expect the multi-variate testing capabilities to be integrated into the ads themselves allowing for real time self selection.