Here is news that may come as a surprise to some of you: even those who claim to have no idea what AI is, and in clearer language – intelligence or artificial intelligence, use it almost without knowing it. So, for example, those who wander social networks recently must have found themselves playing all kinds of AI-sponsored “I guess” games, which showed what he looked like as a knight, checking what a peace agreement with the Palestinians would look like and even optional statuses or tweets that the artificial intelligence writes.

This thing is not only in the social network and controls the algorithms that publish ads to us. How many times have you talked to someone about a certain product and immediately received it in a bunch of advertisements when you opened the phone? Artificial intelligence currently dominates almost every field – medicine, business, even the capital market and certainly retail. Soon our shopping at the supermarket will also become smart, and will not only eliminate our need to stand endlessly in lines, but will also learn our buying habits. And yet, are we losing ourselves into the algorithm, what will happen to free elections and the business world, and is it even possible to escape what seems to be the takeover of the world by artificial intelligence?

First of all, in order to bring some order to AI, we asked Ido Sebag, a technology consultant and one of the senior partners at Whistleright, a startup company, to explain what it is. “It is a collection of different research fields in computer science that aim to simulate human thinking and offer solutions by characteristics similar to human thinking,” says Sebag.

Like the bots that answer us?
“Exactly. And they, for example, provide quick answers that save a phone call. Algorithms and so on.”

It is true that the role of artificial intelligence is to save us time, but sometimes it turns out that as sophisticated as it is, it still does a bit of the opposite. “Amazon previously used AI services to filter candidates for positions in the company, and it turns out that there was a significant decrease in the number of people who were hired after using the sorting software, because it actually caused that fewer candidates were suitable for the position. In other words, sometimes we see that the technology is not really in our favor.”

Music consumers, for example, rely on a customized playlist, but if I personally often resent the adjustments made to me?
“Here, too, there can be problems. Take for example a music consumer, let’s say an Israeli who listens to certain music, the system learns him and does not play him songs that are not connected to his sector. Here, for example, at the time there was a legal claim that the artificial intelligence might outline for that consumer a certain way and a pattern of life that sometimes offend On an ethical level in people. On a legal level, it is something that is being tried to change, as well as the consumption of ads on social networks, the known target based on the searches we do. On the one hand, Bina recognizes what the audience likes and it receives attractive offers, and on the other hand, there may be a miss here when another audience does not Targeted to something he can also love.”

A fine of billions

Sabag talks about a study conducted at Harvard University and examined the uses of different organizations in the field of AI and the need for it. “They checked in what sense the technology improves their performance. The main ones were identifying security breaches, reducing work on the production floor which saved money and quickly solving technological problems that arose for users. Thus, in a broad view, the phenomenal development in the field does not necessarily mean that AI will come to replace humanity as feared , but mainly to try to optimize processes and save many mistakes along the way.”

But it outlines something specific of a company or of anyone who defines the system they want to outline – there is something a bit limited about it.
“This actually reduces our options according to the needs of that body or organization. We produce a certain type of flow, the purpose of which is to give us a clear answer to the questions ‘How can we identify the end consumer?’ Or ‘how to improve our initiatives?’. On the one hand, it’s good because we’re improving both in terms of the quality of the products we receive and the level of subtleties – in the end the mistakes a computer will make are small compared to human mistakes. On the other hand, it can come and hurt our day-to-day lives.” .

In 2017, the European Union imposed a fine of billions of dollars on Google regarding improper conduct in the search market, when Google Chrome owned almost 80% of the search engines. In the competition in the monopoly search engine market at the time, it was not possible for consumers to enjoy the benefits of competition. “Even in the European Union, they are getting into the thick of things, and today they don’t allow big companies to do what they want in front of consumers.”

Still, is there a way to escape it?
“Ultimately, it’s a matter of the user of the service. I personally canceled all tracking options on Facebook, but I can tell you that if as an end consumer a smart system will route me faster in the supermarket according to my shopping list and I will gain a little more time with the children in the evening, I I would love to use it. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the data is also being collected, and this huge amount of data may end up being sold for billions.”

Where will it go?
“Everywhere. Take, for example, transportation. As soon as there is a development that allows an ambulance to go through a smart traffic light system that recognizes it and makes it go faster, I ask myself if the technology exists, and if it works on ambulances, how will I know that another person, let’s say someone Respectable or with a certain socioeconomic ranking, will not be given priority. This is also where the ethical points of the regulation arise, and the day is not far when it will have to deal with them in light of the many developments in the market.”

From ethics to money: how will it affect the capital market?
“Today, AI already exists in the capital market, in terms of actions that a person performs in the process of buying or selling shares. There are systems that recognize certain reactions and learn the interaction. This is also where the regulation comes in. You will have to pay attention to what is happening in the matter of private investments and make sure that systems cannot make a complete decision autonomously. On the other hand, today there are smart systems that know how to analyze the stock market well and by pre-defined actions of people to perform the desired activity automatically and according to the fluctuations of the stock in the market. Still, people should not rely only on the technology, but use it.”

Ruby Bridges was the first African-American girl sent to attend an all-white school in Louisiana. She was driven away in disgrace, and one of the most famous images in history is of the brave girl surrounded by four US marshals escorting her out. In an experiment with an AI system to study the image, it turned out that it recognizes the marshals, but not the dark-skinned girl.

“In such cases we say I need it, and that there are still things to go through until it is completely integrated into our daily lives. The system makes people become more efficient and save time, it shortens times. Even as a consumer in the end I want to get to some end product and buy it, and if I have a smart system who studies me and adapts products to me, and I save time and money, because I get an attractive product in relation to what I was looking for, so for me it contributes as an end consumer. That’s why there are good things. On the other hand, we need to see that we do not harm from a human and moral point of view in these processes.”

learn the business

The retail world is already strong in this area, and as we just learned, even the capital market, but the next thing in the field of AI is the integration of these technologies in small and medium-sized businesses as well. Assaf Cohen, owner and CEO of the startup CNWD erPL, uses AI capabilities with machine learning, and this combination learns the specific business by providing guiding questions, processing information and providing business-specific information.

The goal is to enable not only holistic management, but also the generation of business insights on the fly. Cohen explains that digitization and advanced technology are not necessarily smart technology: “Most large and medium-sized businesses have advanced systems and features for managing the organization, but from the research we did we discovered that most companies use about 4-10 different systems for ongoing management of each business, with each system handling a feature Another in marketing, finances, employees, etc. – which leads to a lack of control and control and also a vital loss of information that may serve the company in the future.”

The innovative development allows a clothing store to plan the amount of orders for the winter based on previous sales data, to know what types of clothes are sold and what pricing the regular customers will want to buy. For marketing companies, for example, the technology helps in locating the most suitable sales representatives for the different types of customers, and even serves as a smart system that handles our invoices and sends notifications to everyone who has not yet paid.

“The system actually stores the information in a smart way and enables analysis and insights at a high level. It not only provides analyses, but also studies the customer from end to end. Once I have the right data, I can teach the software additional data that is not necessarily directly related to the organization, such as weather and transportation. And so, if we assume you have a store in the middle of Dizengoff and the system knows that there are light rail works on the roads, by refining and analyzing the data of your customers, it can say whether it will affect your business or whether your customers are loyal enough. It checks inside and out and tries to identify where the business is Yours changes.”

As in systems of leads?
“The simple lead systems know how to come and say in general today what is a quality lead and what is less, but if we have a high machine learning ability, and since we study the customer from end to end and teach the machine data from the inside and outside, the system can tell what the chances are of closing the deal and with which representative. Over time, the system learns the customer and gives him more and more information for such and other questions that may arise along the way. By the way, your system can tell if your employee is happy or not.”

Is this a step up in AI?
“There are studies that show that certain data shows whether the employee is happy and how loyal he is to the performance. There are several parameters and we use these in our development. Think of all the data that exists on your desk, and one of the tools, along with marketing, salary, etc., is a social tool that provides data on The workers beyond the number. The system knows the employee deeply, and it is constantly studying him. Today, in the age of layoffs, it is possible to use the software to look at the parameters in a broad prism, because there may be employees who are not loyal to the business, but did manage to sell in the last year. So who will you call for a hearing? And this is just one example out of many. The software is updated on the fly and in every field.”

And if we already mentioned “every field”, in the spirit of the World Cup that just ended, if you were wondering how you manage to see videos of all the moves during the game, when did the video editor have time to sit on them? And how the hell did they manage to track down all the little exciting moves in one second? So there is no video editor, at least in some of the instant videos you see on digital and TV that are broadcast simultaneously while playing. This is an Israeli startup that gained momentum in recent years and is called WSC Sports, which began its journey in Microsoft’s accelerator as a video system for coaches and continued as a function that provides the highlights to broadcasters and companies covering various sports events.

“For every sports broadcast, we receive the streaming from our customers, exactly as it appears on TV,” explains Amos Berkovich, team leader of the company’s algorithm department. “The system analyzes the video in three layers – audio, video and a data feed that finds all the key events in the game, such as all the shots to the basket, the kicks to the goal, the corner kicks, the assists and the moves in football or tennis.” Berkovich explains that, contrary to what we know from standard AI systems, these are not models that draw pictures or write texts: “We are in a world called ‘computer vision,’ which means you see an event and have to recognize it, understand if it is a basket, a miss or a tennis stroke, if it is a move It’s interesting for a certain player, who to focus on and so on.”

In the end all these moves become the video we see?
“We create encoded clips according to the client’s request. It can be a three-minute film after the first quarter with all the beautiful moves or a longer film for the app, YouTube or even Twitter. Once for each such film I had to set up a video editor to look for the good moves, and today The system learns through AI to locate, according to definitions, the good moves. That’s why anyone who uses the system can do it with the push of a button.”