Zachary Jarvinen - Enterprise AI For Dummies

Enterprise AI For Dummies®

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2020 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions .

Trademarks:Wiley, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ.

For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002. For technical support, please visit https://hub.wiley.com/community/support/dummies .

Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com . For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com .

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020941002

ISBN: 978-1-119-69629-2 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-69638-4 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-69639-1 (ebk)

1 Cover

2 Introduction Introduction What we want is a machine that can learn from experience. — Alan Turing, Lecture to the London Mathematical Society, 20 February 1947 The whizbang aspects of artificial intelligence get lots of press and screen time. Consider a few recent headlines: The U.S. Army is creating robots that can follow orders. DeepMind’s AI has now outcompeted nearly all human players at StarCraft II. A robotic hand taught itself to solve a Rubik’s Cube after creating its own training regime. A new AI fake text generator may be too dangerous to release, say creators. This AI bot writes such convincing ads that Chase just “hired” it to write marketing copy. Remember back when the caption “Wi-Fi Ready” or “Bluetooth Ready” was stamped in a starburst graphic on the front of boxes for everything from televisions to refrigerators? AI has now reached that exalted status. Of course, you have the smart speaker of your choice and maybe a smart thermostat. But wait, there’s more. You can get an AI-powered toothbrush that tattles to your smartphone about your brushing habits, via Bluetooth of course. An AI-enabled pill dispenser reminds you to take your medicine. And an AI-powered vacuum cleaner tidies up before the dinner guests arrive. But AI is not just about gadgets and novelties. It also keeps the store from running out of water, batteries, and strawberry-flavored Pop-Tarts during hurricane season. It makes sure that a factory doesn’t exceed emissions standards. It figures out supply chain logistics, taking into account product quality, weather, tariffs, geo-political hotspots, compliance, and a host of other factors. AI is also about increasing revenue and creating jobs. Yes, you read that last part right. Contrary to common warnings, AI could boost employment levels by 10 percent if the rest of the world invested in AI and human-machine collaboration at the same level as the top performing 20 percent. About This Book About This Book In this current AI renaissance, new advances appear on a near-daily basis, and that’s a good thing. But this book isn’t about the new, sexy, flashy, bleeding-edge, headline-grabbing utopian AI. It isn’t about the futuristic dystopian AI dreams portrayed in movies, books, and conspiracy theories either. This book is about what AI can do for you, right now, in your business. It’s about well-established, tried-and-true technology and processes that are currently being used in businesses and organizations all over the world to help humans become more productive, more accurate, more efficient, and more understanding. What you won’t find in this book: Deep dives into the mathematics and science underpinning AI Coding tutorials, examples of coding, or coding exercises Libraries and packages that you have to download and install Exercises to complete or problems to solve What you will find in this book: A survey of the market drivers for AI and the enabling technology that makes it possible A very high-level, layperson’s overview of the algorithms and techniques that pragmatic AI uses A quick stroll down AI memory lane to see if you recognize early implementations you likely used Some tips on picking a solid use case for your first AI project for your business A survey of 21 vertical and horizontal markets to see how pragmatic AI can help you now Strong, Weak, General, and Narrow Strong, Weak, General, and Narrow Often, people don’t differentiate between the AI that checks the grammar on your resume and the AI that becomes Skynet and ushers in the robot apocalypse. Just like coffee, ice cream, Pringles, and Pop-Tarts, AI comes in many flavors, but at a high level, it falls into two categories: Strong/general AI: Also known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), general AI is an intelligence that is indistinguishable from human intelligence. In other words, for now, AGI resides solely in the land of science fiction and speculation. Weak/narrow AI: In contrast to general AI, narrow AI lives firmly in the land of the now and the real. Each implementation has a very targeted (hence narrow) focus on accomplishing a specific, practical task. In fact, narrow AI is often called practical or pragmatic AI. Pragmatic artificial intelligence is the subject of this book. You can apply AI to many problems, but in your business, the solutions all fall under three business goals. Every enterprise AI project aims to reduce cost, increase revenue, or explore new business models. As you read about the various vertical and horizontal markets and the related use cases, I might talk about workflow optimization or recommendation engines or predictive maintenance, but ultimately every use case falls under one of these three goals.