No longer science fiction – how AI (Artificial Iintelligence) is becoming part of our daily lives and what the future holds.
Attensi CEO Trond Aas and Muhammad Sajid, Senior Solution Architect at Amazon Web Services agree that artificial interlligence offers people the opportunity of greater freedom, prosperity and happiness – and that the best is yet to come. A positive outlook, but not without addressing some of the limitations and potential sinister uses of AI.
Here are some of the highlights from our fascinating breakfast seminar at Attensi HQ in Oslo and the breakout chat with Trond Aas and Muhammad Sajid.
In the world of rapidly advancing technology the impact of AI is clearer than ever – and its influence is growing fast.
It has moved from the realms of science fiction into the mainstream of people’s lives.
It is quickly becoming just another tool that people use to make their life easier.
Trond and Sajid began their discussion by highlighting that AI is no-longer just a buzzword term – it’s a real force that’s transforming the way we work, learn, and interact with the world around us. They discussed the potential of AI to make people happier, more productive, and more connected to the world.
“AI is taking all the data, all the knowledge of humankind – at least the knowledge that’s accessible to digital algorithms – synthesizing that, and building models,” Trond Aas Co-Founder and CEO | Attensi
Trond explained that AI is not a new thing, but this year we witnessed “a breakthrough on large language models, and how they can be used to assist people in gaining knowledge and gaining insight in creating.”
Muhammad Sajid agreed that generative AI is no longer just hype and that we are going to see so much more of it in future.
“Generative AI is a new type of AI that can generate new content. That content could be ideas, conversations, text generation – it could even be image generation or video. In some situations it can generate music. It is very powerful and we are going to see a lot of uses in our daily lives.” Muhammad Sajid Senior Solution Architect | Amazon Web Services
Large language models are enormous datasets that understand and generate human-like language. This technology has the power to create insightful suggestions – either with words or in images or both.
Trond said that AI works with the grain of human nature, and is an addition to people’s capabilities – not a replacement. It gives us the opportunity to learn and to act as masters of information and data – not its servants.
“As a species, we survive by mastering our environment,” he said. “So, the feeling of mastery is central to who we are as humans. When you feel mastery, the brain, or your body rewards you with endorphins and positive hormones and it’s an incredibly pleasurable feeling.”
“When you master something, you are more likely to be able to control your environment, and hence survive. So, the learning process is triggering fundamental things in our brains, and therefore we find joy in that task.”
“It’s exactly the same kind of triggers that people had when we were wandering the steppes in Africa, millions of years ago. It’s the same mechanisms that make us find so much enjoyment in learning and development.”
Both Trond and Sajid, stressed the importance of continuous learning, each with their own way of learning. Trond enjoys learning through games, reading, and collaboration with other humans, while Sajid leans towards teaching as a learning tool, embodying Joseph Joubert’s philosophy, “To teach is to learn twice.” He also utilizes the internet, reading, and journaling for knowledge retention. “If you stop learning, you stop living.”
Trond framed AI as a revolutionary technology that has the potential to transform how we work and interact. Not taking the term “revolution” lightly, Trond compared AI to previous revolutions that have been transformative from the Industrial Revolution to the Internet.
“There are very few that have convinced me they would revolutionize how we work and how we act. The Internet is definitely one of those things that revolutionized how humans interacted with each other and learned and developed and worked.”
“AI is one of those. There are already AI tools that assist you at work. There are AI tools in software that you’re already using that are creating a lot of value if you use them correctly.”
Trond said that AI can free people from repetitive, routine tasks, making them more productive and prosperous, and also happier by giving them more power over their time and work.
“This technology represents the future. It’s indisputable. You need to be part of this,” he said.
“It will massively change how we work and represents a big potential for productivity, increased learning and efficiency gains – and also I think happier people.”
Trond highlighted the potential of AI in content creation and productivity – even the possibility that we might work less.
For Sajid “the genie is out of the bottle, and it cannot be put back in.”
“ChatGPT gained one million users in just five days. AI is in our daily lives as a productivity tool. It will save us a lot of time – according to research by McKinsey1 it has the potential to save 60% to 70% of employees time within any company – which is a lot of time.
That means you have more time to focus on more creative things. As Tim Ferriss says, ‘what you don’t do determines what you can do.’ When we have this free time, we can leverage this free time in our creativity.”
Trond used the example of AI-generated solutions for game-based training content at Attensi. Let’s say, for example, you want to create a training game on information security – you can upload the information and press a button to generate a solution. It’s not perfect – you have to work with it, but it saves significant time.
“It goes 90 to 99% faster to get to an initial version that you can work on. And what’s the result of that? You can spend more time making it great, or you can create more solutions faster. There’s a huge productivity gain that can be realized.”
“So, we’re not saying that AI is coming to take over the world and take our jobs. We’re saying that AI can do some of the more boring or the more simple tasks, and then we can use our human resources and make that even greater.”
That is a crucial element in Trond’s vision for AI. It places the human element at the heart of creativity and decision-making. AI is not a substitute for ingenuity, insight, and experience. It enables and enriches those qualities.
“The role of editors is going to be even more important in the future,” he said.
Trond added, “The task of creating basic content, basic material, is going to be really quick and easy. So, your role needs to be as the editor. You need to be really good at having perspectives. That part of your job is going to be much more important, and you need to excel at it.”
Muhammad Sajid also underlined the importance of placing human oversight at the center of any activity where AI is at work alongside people.
“It is important to understand some limitations and risks of generative AI,” he said. That should not dissuade progress with AI. “While there are inherent risks, the biggest risk is inaction.”
“For example, we should really think about bias, we should think about hallucinations. We should think about the knowledge cut-off. These are the three problems right now. Because AI models are trained on a lot of data – but the moment you stop training them, that is the only data they have. They do not know about the current events, like what’s going on in the world right now. They do not know what the weather is today.”
“We have to self-moderate them. We have to understand what content is.”
Organizations from startups to enterprises rely on AWS for their generative AI innovations, trusting its enterprise-grade security and privacy. AWS not only offers access to industry-leading foundation models and generative AI-powered applications but also emphasizes security, privacy, and responsible AI, ensuring a choice of foundation models.
Muhammad Sajid emphasized the importance of “responsible AI.” They agreed that AI can be used for sinister purposes and that regulation is needed as well as company policies on the use of AI.
When asked about what moment stands out as the best in the AI journey, Muhammad was quick to point out that the best is yet to come – there is still so much more on the horizon in our AI experience.
Trond agreed with this and described one of his best experiences so far on the AI journey with Attensi-Makayla.
Attensi’s customers are already seeing the benefits of AI as it becomes easier to generate content on platforms powered by machine learning.
Trond described the latest leap forward that will thrill clients – a new AI avatar named Makayla.
He described it as the first time he felt a genuine interaction with an avatar character. Less chat-bot. A more human-like interaction.
Makayla introduces the fascinating concept of creating super-realistic personalities using AI.
Through the use of animation tools, voice recognition, and synthetic voice generation, AI enables us to craft characters that users can interact with. These characters can serve many purposes, from enhancing user experiences to acting as guides in gamified simulations. This opens up exciting possibilities where AI-driven personalities can become an integral part of our daily lives.
Trond concluded by explaining that the key to realizing the happiness potential of AI lies in our ability to adapt, embrace, and master these advances.
It’s not about AI replacing humans. It’s about AI becoming a powerful tool that can elevate human capabilities and free us from mundane tasks, allowing us to focus on what truly matters.
AI hands us the opportunity to create a future that is not only more productive but also more joyful and fulfilling.
“It’s exciting to see where it goes.” Trond Aas Co.Founder and CEO | Attensi
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