Predicting a future where the future is routinely predicted

Abstract

Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence (AI), managers will be alerted to workplace anomalies as soon they occur. Unusual behaviors will be identified in real time by cameras and image-processing software that continuously analyze and comprehend scenes across the enterprise. The hunch-based bets of the past already are giving way to far more reliable data-informed decisions. But AI will take this further. By analyzing new types of data, including real-time video and a range of other inputs, AI systems will be able to provide managers with insights about what is happening in their businesses at any moment in time and, even more significantly, detect early warnings of bigger problems that have yet to materialize. With AI, we can have machines look for millions of worrying patterns in the time it would take a human to consider just one. Statisticians and AI researchers are working together to identify situations and conditions that tend to sound false alarms, The predictive benefits of AI will stretch well beyond equipment and process analysis.