South African companies, at the very least, are experimenting and making plans for the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) within their businesses.
This is the word from Dries Cronje, CEO of AI consulting company Deep Learning Café, highlighting that it’s quite the change in mindset from four or five years ago, when companies would say AI is something Americans, Europeans or Asians do, saying they would get to it one day.
“Even if they start small, there is definitely a shift, whereby most companies are looking at it,” notes Cronje. “Some companies have already shown a lot of success by being early adopters of AI.”
Over the years, the AI market has continued to show signs of growth. Last year’s International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts showed worldwide revenue for the AI market, including software, hardware, and services, would total $156.5 billion in 2020, an increase of 12.3% over 2019.
Furthermore, the IDC’s research pointed to worldwide revenue surpassing $300 billion in 2024, with a five-year compound annual growth rate of 17.1%.
Even though South African firms might not be setting AI trends, they are definitely in the game and are actively piloting AI within their businesses, experimenting with a range of different technologies, such as chatbots, virtual assistants and image recognition, notes Cronje.
“There is huge opportunity for Africa to become a leader in AI. There’s a lot of room for AI investment in Africa…we can become the gateway to an AI and modern workforce where a lot of work can be outsourced to Africa, but we will have to put in the effort to make it work. The opportunity for Africa to become that leader is there.”
Shifting gears
Cronje explains that in the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the need for businesses to come up with tech solutions that allow them to have more flexibility and efficiency.
With the world becoming more digitally connected than ever before, he expects AI will continue to play a crucial role in sustainable growth and recovery for businesses this year.
Cronje anticipates four key AI trends to take shape in 2021, with AI making a greater contribution to science and mathematics.
AI will have real-world impact in fighting against climate change, pollution and future viral pandemics and disease, he states.
According to Cronje, Google’s machine learning company DeepMind’s AI programme, AlphaFold2 successfully determined the 3D shapes of proteins from their amino-acid sequence late last year.
This discovery, he says, will accelerate scientists’ efforts to understand the building blocks of cells and enable quicker and more advanced medicine, research and bioengineering.
The second key trend is AI will happen at the edge – Internet-connected devices will be able to learn from the data they collect.
“The first part of AI rollout has mostly focused on sending data into cloud, then some processing and then send an answer or a prediction back. What I think we’ll begin to see going forward is that our devices will become a lot smarter and AI will be embedded in those devices.”
“For example, security cameras are very simple; they only become smart once the data is uploaded into the cloud for central processing. I anticipate security cameras will start to learn about the people being surveilled. A lot of this will be accelerated as 5G is also being rolled out.”
In light of the ethical concerns around the implementation of AI in social media, Cronje predicts more emphasis on ethical AI. For example, it is likely the ethics around deepfake misinformation, race and gender bias, AI for children, algorithmic bias, data protection and acceptable uses will all be up for necessary discussion in 2021.
“We will have to get to some stage where AI is also more responsible and more accountable for what it does and how it operates. I think we’ll start to see some attempt at regulating AI. There’ll also be pressure on companies using AI to do it in a responsible way and to understand the social implications of what they are doing.”
At number four, he predicts open models with bigger access as large companies such as Intel, Amazon Web Services and Google rapidly incorporate AI into their systems.
“We will see greater democratisation of the AI offerings for public use. This will make digital innovation more accessible for software developers and smaller businesses,” concludes Cronje.
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