Opinion

The Worrying Future of AI and Data Drought

A lack of available data is stifling the adoption of machine learning solutions. Federated Data Sharing might be the answer.

Many organisations are out in the cold when it comes to high-quality data (photo by Harrison Haines from Pexels)

From the earliest themes of artificial intelligence in Greek mythology, people have long thought about AI and the possibilities it may hold. With the advances in computation and mathematics, Alan Turing’s 1950 paper on thinking machines sparked the first real developments of this in practice. The first proof of concept was initialised through Allen Newell, Cliff Shaw, and Herbert Simon’s, Logic Theorist, a program designed to mimic the problem-solving skills of humans — considered by many to be the first artificial intelligence program presented in 1956.

AI is 60 years young, we’re only at the very beginning.

Despite its 60 year history and all of the hype in the last few years, there’s a long way to go. We’ve already seen the numerous, troubling challenges of ethics poses and some of the failings of big business (this write up by the World Economic Forum is a good place to start).

There’s another looming threat, however, that has already claimed its fair share of victims trying to develop AI solutions to business…