The risks and rewards of AI playing a larger part in our lives

Organisations are embracing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, but they need to be careful with what is still in many ways a nascent technology. Executed well, it can deliver competitive advantage; do it badly and it can cost credibility as well as money. Ian Campbell reports

Barry O’Sullivan director of the Insight Centre for Data Analytics at University College Cork: ‘The people at the table who make decisions really do have to understand the issues. If you're blind to bias, for example, you will get into trouble.’ Picture: John Allen

Despite decades of dystopian films about robots taking over the world, the reality of AI may be a tad more dull and a lot less destructive than we might have expected. Any risk that AI algorithms could still blossom into sentient beings intent on destroying humans looks like it will be nipped in the bud by EU legislation – an alternative storyline for the Terminator franchise that no one would have paid to see.

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