Australia is at risk of becoming a low-skilled economy without a serious commitment to investing in new technologies like artificial intelligence.
Underinvestment in artificial intelligence leaves Australia vulnerable and blindly walking towards becoming a low-skilled economy.
However, investment in AI is not a matter of desire – or lack thereof. There is an appetite to invest. “In two years, we have built our reputation as a trusted innovation provider, in part because our business model is an Australian first as an independent not-for-profit company,” Stewart says. “AI is available in so many places. You look at how much technology is behind a self-driving car, for instance. The mind boggles. And that’s not even at the edge of our capability as a species. But we often find that the biggest ROI is just in the simplest problems,” Anandakumar says.Anandakumar also encourages organisations to look beyond trying to make everything perfect, saying that in many cases, 80 per cent of your result will be better than human performance.
One barrier to investment in AI is the widespread talent shortage, and a deep-seated lack of understanding around what a role in AI entails.Solar says the most surprising feedback from her listening tour came from a group of AI post-graduate students who were under the impression that the only AI career path for them was research and academia.