[zkmon]

This should go to all CEOs. They should realize that the real problem AI solves is handling of text and unstructured data. That is the core ability.

But I don't blame them. Process optimization is hard. If a new tool promises more speed, without changing the process, they are ready to pour money at that.

[Spooky23]

Well, that’s a pretty powerful capability.

I recently did a pilot project where we reduced the time for a high friction IT Request process from 4 day fulfillment to about 6 business hours. By “handing text and unstructured data”, the process was able to determine user intent, identify key areas of ambiguity that would delay the request, and eliminate the ambiguity based on data we have (90%) or by asking a yes/no question to someone.

All using GCP tools integrating with a service platform, our ERP and other data sources. Total time ~3 weeks, although we cheated because we understood both the problem and process.

[orev]

I suspect that could have also been accomplished without any kind of AI. Most processes are inefficient simply because nobody has taken the time to optimize them (and rightly so if they’re not used often enough to justify the time; premature optimization and all that). The act of simply deciding to optimize something, and then looking at it, usually results in significant gains just because of that, regardless of what tools were used.

[Spooky23]

You’re missing the point.

We knew about the problem for some time. The technical issue isn’t rocket science. The problem is the cost of changing the processes and human behavior is expensive in terms of time and energy, and we’d spend a lot of man hours and maybe cash on it.

So we used a tool and fixed the process in a few days. That’s a win, unless you believe the hype that AGI is upon us!

[watermelon0]

Text and unstructured data is mainly related to NLP/LLM, not to the AI as a whole.

[zkmon]

If you take out LLM (text/img/voice processing) from all the models, I'm curious to know, what else is left that can be called as AI today?

[CPLX]

In fairness, that is an extraordinary talent. The reality is that a huge amount of processes that exist have critical steps where humans have to make judgments because the information (was thought to be) not clear and structured enough for a machine.

For many processes that have just suddenly changed, somewhat subjective evaluations can be made reliably by an AI. At least as reliably as was being done before by relatively junior or outsourced staff.

Replacing low-level employees relying on a decision matrix playbook-type document with AI has a LOT of applications.