Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2024. Read them in this 16th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Creation of a Constitution Between Man and Machine
By Bob Estes, Reveille Software
One of the most well-known prognosticators, besides Nostradamus, was Babe Ruth, who called his shot in the fifth inning of Game 3 of the 1932 World Series. Perhaps the Chicago Cubs’ taunting galvanized The Great Bambino to hit the historic home run. Today, we are witnessing another historical event, the once-silly notion of an artificial intelligence machine becoming a future-shaping reality that touches us all.
As far back as 1927, in the movie Metropolis, AI was depicted as a humanoid robot intent on wreaking havoc. Over the decades, AI has transformed from the laughable and obscure to a remarkable part of our lives. However, as with many innovations, there are always byproducts. In the case of AI, these repercussions take the form of extreme energy use, security concerns, and other related social issues. As we embark upon 2024, we can expect a heightened awareness to occur and new conversations to emerge for the enhancement and protection of daily tasks:
- AI will continue to approach the peak of the hype-cycle bell curve, rounding the top to pass the early adopter stage. AI will be on every organization’s task list to help boost productivity, harden security, and lower costs with real-time data analysis. Furthermore, in 2024, conversational AI is poised for accelerated maturation, assisting many individuals, including customers, partners, patients, constituents, and more, in navigating the online landscape while seamlessly accommodating their language preferences.
- Energy costs will continue to be volatile due to various wars in the Gulf region. At the same time, Western nations’ hungry AI applications drain power grids that can’t be replenished fast enough with green energy infusions. Because of these circumstances, 2024 will witness an aggressive reinvestment in traditional energy sources (more power grids) while significant funds pour into the next generation of clean nuclear power.
- Corporate real estate will continue to suffer from bloated inventory and fewer workers returning to cubicles. This situation will become exacerbated by the efficiencies AI brings to workers as it streamlines tasks and ushers in a new age of productivity. Managers will begin to realize that a three-hour commute produces as much productive capacity as an old-fashioned fax machine and will tell workers to stay home.
- Small to mid-sized organizations will rapidly embrace cloud-based infrastructures for improved, collaborative environments supporting a distributed workforce. Like their larger counterparts, even smaller companies will seek Managed Content-as-a-Service options to optimize their content management processes, reduce costs, and improve their overall content strategy with AI enablement.
- Security concerns will become amplified as more control is ceded to AI operations. The conversation about human intervention and AI-driven results will become a central boardroom topic as the distributed workforce and supply chain support discussions take center stage. Terms such as “behavioral security,” focusing on insider theft, and “friendshoring,” a growing trade practice where supply chain networks are concentrated in countries regarded as political and economic allies, will become commonplace.
Except for the pandemic year, every new year has brought incremental challenges to business and society. Both good and bad, these changes have experienced an incubation period and a slow rollout. However, the advent of “everyday AI” has brought an unprecedented magnitude of reshaping of society. Machines that can augment their purpose by writing their code are a reality, and the energy consumption to support them becomes humanity’s burden. In 2024, conversations about safe AI practices and parameters will take place from Wall Street to Main Street, from how it will reduce the attack surfaces of our networks to why it’s proposing inappropriate movies for minors watching Netflix. This coming year will be pivotal in writing a constitution between man and machine, putting checks and balances in place to ensure thoughtful and productive results are realized, and power does not go unchecked.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As Reveille Software CEO and member of the Board of Directors, Bob Estes is responsible for the company’s overall strategy, growth and operations. Over the past 25 years, Bob has successfully launched several early-stage high-tech software companies and honed his expertise in integrating product strategy across operations and acquisitions. Bob helped start MediaBin Inc., a market leader in brand asset management, which was later acquired by Interwoven, Inc. He has also served as VP of Marketing and Product Management with several Atlanta-based software companies focused on enterprise content management, sales force automation and mobile communications, including XcelleNet, Inc. Bob graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
