Challenges and Opportunities of AI Kritika (C20-079)

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)
“Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be
the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks.”

-Stephen Hawking

INTRODUCTION

Artificial Intelligence, commonly known as “AI” has been used a lot in

industries all over the world since the last decade. The term was first
coined in Dartmouth research conference in August, 1955 by a group of
researchers. They proposed that every aspect of learning or any other
feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a
machine can be made to simulate it (McCarthy, Minsky, Rochester, &
Shannon, 1955). Today, it can be thought of as advanced field of
computer science which provides the capability of imitating human
intelligence in machines.

Fig. 1. AI Family Set (Source - (Towards Data Science, 2018))

Today, AI technology can be seen used across multiple sectors and

industries to make smart decisions. However, even with this immense
growth in last years, we are not yet able to tap the full opportunities
associated with AI due to certain challenges and limitations of AI. This
report initially presents the applications of AI in various sectors and then
moves on to present the challenges associated with AI in these industries.

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It also presents various opportunities of AI which can be tapped once we

overcome the challenges of AI.

CHALLENGES OF AI

Even though AI holds enormous potential, there are a lot of challenges

which need to be overcome so that the industries can leverage the power
of AI in it’s true form. These challenges are the challenges which are faced
by almost every sectors and industries who want to deploy AI solutions
for their business problems (POLACHOWSKA, 2019). These challenges
are as follows:-

• Data quality and quantity :- The data-related issues are probably

the most facing issues by almost all the companies. The AI system
and the solutions which we build completely depends upon the data
provided because AI systems require large set of training datasets
to build their models. Data is the oil which fuels AI. Similar to
humans, AI learns from available information, but in order to identify
patterns, it needs much more data than we require. Better the data
is, better will be the models and the better outcome will be
generated. The key to build AI systems is Available, accessible,
accurate and affordable data. This is quite a challenge in India. Data
which is both accurate and relevant in a given context are rarely
readily available. For example, Crime data in India are grossly
underreported (A., 2017). India’s National Data Sharing and
Accessibility Policy shares non-sensitive data through the Open
Data Platform, but this has had limited success in solving the data
parity problem.
• Data Labelling: - Most AI algorithms require a large and heavy set
of good quality training images if the solution is for healthcare sector
or autonomous vehicles. These training images must be “labelled”
i.e., annotated. This is used to manually delineate the region of
interest in all images. Annotation is ideally best performed by
subject experts. Crowdsourcing may be quicker and cheaper but
has the potential to introduce noise. Detailed annotation of large
numbers of images is not only boring but also very challenging
when working with low resolution or blurry images, ambiguity of
features and slow networks. At present, there are a small number of

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publicly available datasets which contain labelled images and can

be employed for AI purpose.
• Computing is not that Advanced: - Machine Learning and deep
learning techniques require a series of complex calculations to
made very quickly. These techniques utilize a lot of processing
power. Currently, it’s very difficult to get enough computing and
processing power to implement these AI techniques.
• Explainability and Transparency: - With AI “black box” models,
we end up with a conclusion, e.g. a prediction, but not any
explanation to it. There is very less transparency that how the
decision has been made.
• Case Specific Learning: - AI continues to have difficulties carrying
its experiences from one set of circumstances to another. Rather
than building a new model from the scratch, it would be good to use
one experience into other.
• Bias: - In India, datasets used to train models have the risk of having
biasedness where communities and classes of individuals are
overlooked. Data from disadvantaged and minority groups may be
very difficult to collect, access or verify. Machine learning depends
on taking inputs based on examples. This data can vary from
gender, caste, class or geographical location. Bias can occur as a
result of multiple factors. First being the way of collecting data. If the
data collection happened through a survey published in a magazine,
it’s fact that the answers (data) come only from the small group who
read that magazine. Here dataset is limited to a small population.
The way data is found and collected is another way to develop bias.
When a group of people is using some system, they use some
favourite features and simply not use (or rarely use) other features.
AI cannot learn about the functions that are not used with the same
frequency in this case. People lie, which can also cause bias.
• Model errors and Lagging in accuracy: - AI models are not error
free. Even a small logical error can impact the models. AI is lagging
in provability and predictions are not accurate as the entities
involved would prefer.
• Lack of understanding of AI among higher management and
non-technical people: - Lack of understanding hinders AI adoption
in many fields. In some cases, it also sets impossible goals and

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expectations. This also leads to lack of business alignment. AI

implementation requires a formulation of strategies, setting
objectives and identifying KPIs, and tracking return on investment.
• Lack of proper talent in AI: - There is shortage of AI experts who
will know how to approach the given business problem and find AI
solutions for it.
• Data Security: - Security and data privacy are significant
challenges for AI. AI applications must have access to a large
amount of data in order to learn and make reliable decisions. The
data may be sensitive in nature. Identity theft and data breach
therefore pose as significant concerns.
• Creating Trust: - AI is like a black box for people. They don’t feel
comfortable when they don’t understand how the decision was
made. Hence, AI has not been able to build trust among people.
Apart from this, they also hold dilemmas about the AI in their mind.
(Kaplana & Haenlein, 2020) has described the major six dilemmas
using PESTEL framework which are currently in people’s mind.
• Cost and Investment: - AI/ML experts, business analysts, data
scientists, and experts in today’s market are hard to find and they
are expensive. Developing, deploying, and maintaining AI solutions
from scratch will require data engineers, software engineers, ML/AI
experts and the right infrastructure. The total expense required for
this is often quite large.
• Integration Challenges: - The success of AI implementation
depends upon how well the solution integrates with existing
infrastructure and business verticals within the organization. The
organization needs to be flexible enough to adapt new business
models, new technologies, and new workflows across multiple
departments.
• Legal Issues: - Since AI is collecting sensitive data, recent
developments in AI is raising legal concerns and issues. Collection
of sensitive data can be in violation of state or federal laws. Even if
it’s not illegal, firms need to be careful of any perceived impact which
might negatively impact them.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR AI

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Challenges and Opportunities of AI Kritika (C20-079)

Apart from multiple challenges associated with AI, there are still several
opportunities for AI in business such as:-

• Useful for crime regulation and law enforcement: - AI systems

are capable of making meaningful inferences, classifications and
categorizations, and their use is carried out across sectors, from
advertising to law enforcement. The ability of AI systems to extract
information from data, spot patterns and predict trends means that
innocuous information can be mined to the point of relevance and
intimacy. Law enforcement agencies in Punjab use the Punjab
Artificial Intelligence System, which adopts a ‘smart policing’
approach using ‘proprietary, advance hybrid AI technology’ (Sathe,
2018) to digitize criminal records, and facilitates criminal search by
using technologies like facial recognition to predict and recognize
criminal activity. University of Cambridge recently published a paper
titled “Eye in the sky” which describes plans of training drones
(Johnson, 2020) to identify violent behaviour in public spaces. The
intention of these programmes is to manage crowded public spaces
to make them safer, reduce crime rates and bring efficiency in law
enforcement.
• Useful for prevention of hate speech and fake news over the
internet:- AI is offered by both private technology companies and
governments as a solution to complex problems like hate speech,
violent extremism and misinformation online. Artificial intelligence
uses the concept of Natural language processing (Feyza & Bilal,
2020), voice recognition, Object detection and other
supervised/unsupervised algorithms like Bayes classifier (Granik &
Mesyura, 2017) to identify fake images, news and videos. It also
helps in understanding the tone and context of speech. AI further
helps in automated content removal and takes down legitimate
speech (Granik, Mesyura, & Yarovyi, Determining Fake Statements
Made by Public Figures by Means of Artificial Intelligence, 2018).
Sentiment analysis tools are rapidly deployed to gauge the tone and
nature of speech online, and are often trained to carry out
automated content removal. Indian Government has also shown
interest in moving towards using AI to carry out sentiment analysis,
identify fake news and boost India’s image on social media
platforms.

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Challenges and Opportunities of AI Kritika (C20-079)

• Use of AI in marketing: - Every business wants to focus on high

achieving marketing strategies and wants to learn about which
marketing activities deliver the highest return on investment. But it
takes a lot of time to monitor and analyse data across all the media
channels. So, AI marketing solutions can easily help in managing
marketing operations across various channels (AlexandruCapatina,
et al., 2020). These solutions can also analyse live campaign data
with the help of sentiment analysis algorithms and suggests a
distribution of marketing activities.
• AI integrated customer support solutions: - Automated chat
systems (Maritzol, Sergio, Angélica, & Jaime, 2020) (chatbots)
based upon artificial intelligence help small businesses to scale their
customer service efforts for difficult customer interactions (Eleonora
& Gabriele, 2020). These solutions autosuggest or automate
answers to customer queries, classify help tickets and redirect
inquiries to the concerned team or department. It leads to reduction
in average handling time and it enhances the overall
responsiveness of customer service team. Many banks currently
use AI in chatbots in basic form.
• Use of AI in Healthcare and Radiology: - AI creates more precise
analytics for pathology and radiology medical images (Hamid &
Liron, 2018). It also brings intelligence to medical devices and
machines. It can turn the electronic health record into a reliable risk
predictor.
• Autonomous Vehicles: - People who are suffer from certain
physical limitations or are blind will soon have the ability to go
anywhere because of the autonomous vehicles based upon AI
technology. Self-Driving Vehicles in logistics is another innovative
use of AI.
• Robotic Process Automation: - AI fuelled Robotic Process
Automation (RPA) currently replicate rule-based tasks which are
very repetitive and monotonous for humans day to day. These tasks
can be performed by RPA much faster, accurate, and cost-effective
than humans.
• Logistics & Delivery:- Using AI in logistic sector for route
optimization, network management, demand prediction and

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analysing and providing the insights across the company can

streamline the complexity of supply chain management.
• Financial Services: - AI can be used in multiple places in finances
such as analysing the expense pattern and payments history and
then provide recommendations for investments.
• Customer Relationship Management: - AI can help in accurate
marketing campaigns. It will also automate customer reports,
emails, data capture, and avoid the risk of human errors in everyday
tasks and administrative duties. AI-powered CRM will be able to
learn from historical patterns and past decisions to generate the
best leads for sales. It will also be able to predict future customer
behaviour.
• HR & Recruitment: - HR is filled with numerous rule-based tasks
that could be done efficiently by AI and RPA. For example, Typical
on-boarding would take an HR associate 2.5 hours to complete from
hiring decision to sending the offer, while an AI enabled system
could accomplish the same in few minutes.

STEPS TO OVERCOME THE CHALLENGES OF AI

The following steps should be taken in order to overcome the above

mentioned challenges and tap the opportunities market which is open for
AI:-

• Data quality and quantity :- Need to identify what data we have,

it’s type and categories (Structured or unstructured) and what data
is required after identifying the machine learning model. Missing
data can be obtained from publicly accessed information such as
Google dataset and in case if it’s unavailable then data can be
bought from third parties. Using synthetic data which is created
artificially basing on real data or from scratch. Use an RPA robot to
scrape publicly available data.
• Data Labelling :- Few data labelling approaches such as synthetic
labelling or data programming can be adopted. This can be done
internally or outsourced.
• Low Computing Power :- Cloud computing, provided by Amazon
web services (AWS) and Google cloud platform (GCP) has given

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the infrastructure for massively parallel processing systems for the

implementation of Machine Learning and Deep Learning algorithms.
• Explainability and Transparency: - Approaches such as LIME
(local interpretable model-agnostic explanations) aim to increase
the transparency across models. It finds the logic and data variables
which led to this decision. This increases the trust and confidence
on the developed model.
• Case Specific Learning: - Transfer learning makes it possible. The
AI model is trained to carry out a certain task and after that it applies
same learning to a similar but distinct activity. This means that a
model developed for task A is used later as a starting point for a
model for task B.
• Bias : - An even distribution of sample population and features
should be taken while building the model.
• Model errors and Lagging in accuracy: - High quality of input and
appropriate testing can ensure correct models and minimise the
errors.
• Lack of understanding of AI among higher management and
non-technical people:- People must be educated about the
capabilities and limitations of AI.
• Data Security :- Data should be encrypted in safe and secure vault
so that data and privacy breach doesn’t happen.

CONCLUSION

AI systems use data, powerful statistical models and heavy calculational

abilities to find the pattern in the business. These systems can help
organizations across many sectors make more data-driven decisions and
improve their business outcomes. It will also increase the speed of
decision making. But implementing AI has lot of challenges which need to
be overcome to capture the opportunities. This will reduce human
workload and improve outcomes that helps us scale our business.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

McCarthy, J., Minsky, M. L., Rochester, N., & Shannon, C. E. (1955). A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer
Research Project on Artificial Intelligence. (p. 13). AI Magazine,.

Towards Data Science. (2018, May 27). Cousins of Artificial Intelligence. Retrieved from Towards Data Science:
https://towardsdatascience.com/cousins-of-artificial-intelligence-dda4edc27b55

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Challenges and Opportunities of AI Kritika (C20-079)

Kaplana, A., & Haenlein, M. (2020). Rulers of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of artificial
intelligence. In A. Kaplana, & M. Haenlein, Business Horizons (pp. 37-50).

A., D. (2017). What the National Crime Records Bureau report does not tell us about Cyber Crime in India.
Retrieved from The Scroll: https://scroll.in/article/860254/what-the-national-crime-records-bureau-
report-does-not-tell-us-about-cyber-crime-in-india

Sathe. (2018). Cops in India are using artificial intelligence that can identify you in a crowd. Retrieved from
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criminals-in-punjab-but-should-you-worry-too_a_23502796/

Granik, M., & Mesyura, V. (2017). Fake news detection using naive Bayes classifier. 2017 IEEE First Ukraine
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Granik, M., Mesyura, V., & Yarovyi, A. (2018). Determining Fake Statements Made by Public Figures by Means
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Feyza, A. O., & Bilal, A. (2020). Fake news detection within online social media using supervised artificial
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Johnson, J. (2020). Drone Swarming and Escalation Risks in Future Warfare. The RUSI Journal.

AlexandruCapatina, Maher, K., Jessica, L., Adrian, M., Angela-Eliza, M., & Federica, C. (2020). Matching the
future capabilities of an artificial intelligence-based software for social media marketing with
potential users’ expectations. Technological Forecasting and Social Change.

Maritzol, T., Sergio, L.-M., Angélica, A., & Jaime, R. Z. (2020). Ekybot: Framework Proposal for Chatbot in
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Eleonora, P., & Gabriele, P. (2020). Forecasting artificial intelligence on online customer assistance: Evidence
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POLACHOWSKA, K. (2019, June 6). Retrieved from Neoteric: https://neoteric.eu/blog/12-challenges-of-ai-

adoption/