On 22 March, a new conference was held as part of the cycle of conferences organised by Banco Sabadell, which was held to analyse with its employees the impact of the advent of Artificial Intelligence for companies and society. The speaker was, in this case, Richard Benjamins one of the foremost experts in the field. In his talk, he emphasised the impact that this type of technology will have on financial institutions and their customers.
This second day, which was part of the cycle focused on ethics and trustworthy AI that Banco Sabadell organised to reflect on this topic among its employees, was given by Richard Benjamins, one of the 100 leading international experts in the field of the application of data in companies. Author of several books and hundreds of articles on the subject, he is currently “Chief & Data Strategist” at Telefónica.
During his conference, he assured that Artificial Intelligence is an unstoppable phenomenon, destined to radically transform not only the day-to-day life of companies but also society as a whole, and that its implementation can bring immense advantages and business opportunities. But there are also major problems and risks if they are not properly applied, since their use could even lead to violations of citizens’ fundamental rights, which could result in financial penalties.
He explained that by using AI, it will be possible to perform, in just a few seconds, operations that currently require processes that can take weeks. At the same time, the potential problems that these technologies can create if not applied correctly were also discussed. With its pros and cons, what we should all be clear about is that Artificial Intelligence is an unstoppable phenomenon that is here to stay and that will profoundly transform not only the way companies operate but also the organisation of our society.
Possible applications of Artificial Intelligence in companies
Among some of the main applications that Artificial Intelligence systems could bring in the near future, he highlighted, among others, driverless cars or the virtual – and undetectable – representation of human beings.
The film industry has already seen the release of films starring actors recreated virtually to perfection. In the field of politics and social media, several examples of what is known as “Deep Fake” have already emerged. In other words, videos theoretically starring public representatives making false or manipulated speeches on camera. The problem is that the reproduction of the image of this person is of such technical perfection that it is impossible to detect that it is a fraud.
Special mention should be made of the already popular GPT Chat one of the most talked-about AI systems in recent months, which is capable of instantly writing texts of all types and lengths, in all languages and with absolute syntactic perfection.
For companies, the combination of all these new techniques (creation of “virtual people” combined with powerful Artificial Intelligence engines) could mean, to cite just one example, the possibility of creating, at last, “Virtual Assistants“, available 24×7, capable of carrying out formalities or resolving queries with a much greater reliability than real people can currently offer. The problem is that – as mentioned – it is impossible to know that you are not interacting with a human being, but that you are talking “to a robot”. It will therefore be necessary to warn the user of this circumstance if such resources are used.
To sum up, the possibilities – both in terms of business opportunities and internal process improvement – are immense. As are the risks if these techniques are not used appropriately. On the other hand, implementation is neither easy nor quick. Some large Spanish companies have been working in this direction for more than 12 years. And the process has not been easy. For financial institutions, Artificial Intelligence could be very useful, among many other things, to greatly speed up circuits such as those related to risk assessment, prior to granting loans.
Social consequences of Artificial Intelligence implementation
Benjamins also spoke of the consequences that the advent of these new technologies will most likely have on the social level. Again, he referred to both positive (they can be very useful in predicting or coping with the effects of phenomena such as natural disasters) and negative ones. With regard to the latter, he insisted on the fact that their misapplication could even lead to the violation of people’s fundamental rights. As they are fully automatic systems, operating without any human intervention and autonomously, it could be the case that, if they are not correctly programmed, their decisions could be harmful to citizens. Detailed rules will therefore be needed to regulate them in detail.
He also referred to its foreseeable effects on the labour market. He predicts that such technologies will make human labour increasingly redundant. It will therefore be necessary to consider how to manage this new scenario and whether measures such as the Universal Basic Income should be implemented. Finally, a third factor that cannot be ignored is that these are technologies that emit a large amount of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Need for new legal regulations
Finally, according to his forecasts, it will be necessary for public authorities to clearly determine what Artificial Intelligence systems are and what they are not, and therefore which systems and activities will have to be regulated by the new rules that will have to be enacted to regulate their activity. The definition of Artificial Intelligence has varied over time. And while these legal standards do not yet exist, a number of recommendations have already been promulgated to begin to manage the enormous ethical challenges that their emergence brings to the table.
