Ask the Experts: How Will Artificial Intelligence Redefine Your Industry?
In an ongoing series, scientists, industry leaders, academics, and entrepreneurs answer fascinating questions about their areas of interest. Got insight you’d like to share? Become a Propel(x) expert.
A few weeks ago, we asked our Propel(x) experts to give us some insight into the ways Artificial Intelligence (AI) could impact their industry. Here at Propel(x), we are big fans of artificial intelligence and the promise the technology has made to automate and predict through pattern recognition and self-learning.
AI is like that kid in Mercury Rising who can look at a page of jumbled nonsense and crack the government’s most expensive code ever. Codes and patterns come in all shapes and sizes — from Bach’s music to Coachella band names to diagnosing tuberculosis to self-driving cars.
Many economists and experts are warning of mass unemployment as automation becomes more integrated in our lives. Even the UN opened a Centre of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics to monitor the situation. As computers become increasingly capable of doing all sorts of human-like things, it’s no surprise that people across all sorts of industries are starting to wonder whether they’ll soon be replaced.
Frankly, they should wonder. We… all… should…
Looking ahead a few decades, however, futurists disagree over whether the loss of jobs will create a destabilized dystopia of unemployment or a new renaissance of instant-retirement and a Star Trekian ability for humans to pursue their passion projects.
We at Propel(x) thinks it’s the latter. To be sure, the rise of AI-powered automation will redefine the meaning of work over the next few decades but it will also bring forth a wave of new innovations that humankind has to yet to achieve for ourselves.
Below, we’ve gathered a collection of some of those innovations, which we consider reason enough for a little AI optimism. Most of our respondents located their answer within Medtech, so if you need a primer on that be sure to read our medtech overview for a little more information.
Enjoy!
Sam Ximenes
Master of Space Architecture from Texas A&M University
CEO of Exploration Architecture Corporation
Ed Bass
MSME from University of Texas
Professor of Advanced Manufacturing at Hagerstown Community College
“In products and processes, as well as engineering and manufacturing, I expect AI to become a feature and eventually a necessity. Products with AI will help users get the most utility from them without requiring the user to learn how the software works. In fact, software with AI will reduce the training required of users. This will be very important in fields like CAD, CAM, and simulation. Processes with AI will also reduce the skill required of operators. The sensors that allowed hardware to be smart will be the key to making AI learn the processes it is required to execute.”
Amit Kumar
MS in Systems Architecting from the University of Southern California
Founder and CEO of Antarriksh, Inc.
“Deep Learning will significantly enhance the detection-to-decision-making lifecycle for industrial asset health management in automotive, energy, continuous process manufacturing, and transportation markets.”
Dr. George Lazarovits
PhD in Botany (Plant Pathology) from University of Toronto
Research Director
“It will be in all farm machinery and production systems.”
Dr. Aleck Alexopoulos
PhD in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University
Principal Research Scientist at CERTH and CEO of ErgoSensePro
“Despite the significant efforts to develop first-principles approaches — Specifically in the area of sports training and performance — there are broad gaps between disciplines where experimental trials and empirical rules are the available tools. AI and machine learning could become capable of bridging these gaps in the coming decade, e.g., between deep athlete evaluation and performance or training or rehabilitation.”
Johnny Wang
Bachelor in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia
CEO of Liquid3D
“Image classification will advance machine vision greatly to allow advancement in broad scope of applications. AR technologies will push contextual information to the user.”
Dr. Euan Smith
PhD in Nonlinear Optics from Heriot-Watt University
Director of Technology at Light Blue Optics
“Enhancements to collaboration tools through technologies to interpret content and virtual assistants.”
Michael Leung
MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University
Hardware Engineer
“Artificial intelligence will augment radiologists’ ability to read and diagnose medical charts and images. Artificial intelligence through neural nets and machine learning can achieve higher accuracy and faster diagnostics than humans.”
Dr. Justin Doel
PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Bath
Manager Clinical Supplies at PPD
“I think that we will start to see automation of many clinical trial set up tasks, and hopefully simplification, directly from protocol to systems set up.”
Dr. Bogdan Barnych
PhD in Chemistry from Claude Bernard University Lyon
Project Scientist at UC Davis
“AI has already been proven to be useful for the development of the small molecule and protein therapeutics (as well as other chemistry fields). I expect that ever-growing computational power together with new developments in AI algorithms will make this technology broadly available and reliable thus fueling new discoveries across the chemistry fields.”
Dr. Larry K. Wray
PhD in Genetics from the University of Texas at Austin
Principal at Wray IVD Consulting
“The medical field is in real need for artificial intelligence to play an immediate and integral role. Data is expanding — some say exploding — and answers are there which could significantly improve healthcare, including better health maintenance. Better analysis tools including artificial intelligence will be needed to make sense of all of this [data] and provide actionable outputs in a reasonable timeframe. This applies to precision medicine, liquid biopsy and any area which captures a large amount of data, be it proteomics panels, sequence data, or combining data from laboratory analysis with medical records and other sources.”
READ MORE: Why Emergent Bias in Machine Learning Should Terrify You
Dr. Victor Solovyev
PhD in Computational Genetics from the Institute of Cytology & Genetics
Chief Science Officer at Softberry, inc.
“Artificial intelligence will improve the speed of drug recovery.”
Dr. Thomas Novak
PhD in Molecular Biology from Caltec
Advisor to Summer Road, LLC
“AI has the potential to accelerate the discovery of new (and better) drug targets and improve the safety and utility of both consumer products and specialized technical instrumentation. To my limited knowledge, blockchain will improve the speed and security of online transactions which is no small feat. AI, on the other hand, could both improve current technologies and create new ones.”
Faisal Zaidi
MBA Marketing Management from IGNOU
Centralized Monitoring Lead
“AI is going to play a greater role in the drug development process considering that the clinical trial industry is focusing on remote clinical trial monitoring. Costs will significantly go down along with real time data access. Additionally, AI would help in predicting diseases for a particular community, race, etc. based on their lifestyle.”
