AI, Sales, and Strategy: Insights from the 15gifts Panel Discussion

Last month, I had the pleasure of joining executives from Verizon, GSMA, and Artefact in London for a panel discussion hosted by Humara and 15gifts, exploring the evolving role of AI agents in sales. Our conversation covered industry pressures, internal resourcing, the nuances of AI in “closed box” vs “open box” problems, and how users … Continue reading AI, Sales, and Strategy: Insights from the 15gifts Panel Discussion

From Writing Assistant to Teaching Tool: My Experience, so far, Using NotebookLM

Recently, I had discussions with a couple of people about NotebookLM: our experiences of using it, and the main pros and cons that we had identified, thus far. I have captured some of my thoughts, here, and would be interested to hear about your experiences, too. NotebookLM is tool developed by Google and powered by … Continue reading From Writing Assistant to Teaching Tool: My Experience, so far, Using NotebookLM

AI Labels Undermine Trust in Real News and Reinforce Confirmation Bias

Social media content is pushed at us by algorithms trying to keep us engaged with the platform. And, because sensationalist content tends to hold our attention more than non-sensationalist one, our feeds often get polluted by disinformation. Disinformation is a serious problem for society, leading many to look for ways of increasing our alertness to … Continue reading AI Labels Undermine Trust in Real News and Reinforce Confirmation Bias

LLMs need to be more kale

A couple of weeks ago, Gary Marcus’s newsletter flagged a company (Inqwire) that had a statement on their frontpage, stating that they do not use LLMs*, and adding that they do not pretend to be using humans when they use chatbots. Inqwire’s positioning is the complete opposite of pseudo-AI, in which companies sell certain services (e.g., … Continue reading LLMs need to be more kale

Thoughts on the privacy threats and personalisation opportunities of qualitative inference with large language models

I have come across the paper entitled “Beyond Memorization: Violating Privacy Via Inference with Large Language Models”, authored by Robin Staab, Mark Vero, Mislav Balunović and Martin Vechev. Staab and his team investigated “whether current LLMs could violate individuals' privacy by inferring personal attributes from text”. Using prompts and techniques that, to me, seem quite … Continue reading Thoughts on the privacy threats and personalisation opportunities of qualitative inference with large language models

[Miscellany]: Failing to foresee the current state of AI; AI replacing vs augmenting jobs; and regulation of AI in the EU

Failing to foresee the current state of AI The last 14 months or so have seen incredible change in AI technology. AI has progressed beyond a level that many analysts thought it would take many years – or, indeed, many decades – to achieve. In this blog post, Scott Aaronson, who is a computer scientist at … Continue reading [Miscellany]: Failing to foresee the current state of AI; AI replacing vs augmenting jobs; and regulation of AI in the EU

Rethinking existential risk from AI

In a recent interview on Lex Friedman’s podcast, Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was asked whether he worried about the existential threat presented by the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. He replied: “My own view is that, where we really need to be careful is on the development of autonomy, and how you think about that… … Continue reading Rethinking existential risk from AI

AI in Marketing – slide set from introductory workshop

About a year ago, I delivered an introductory workshop to students of the MSc AI Strategy, about the role of Artificial Intelligence in Marketing. Recently, a colleague (from a different field) was asking me for an overview on this topic, and I shared this slide set with her. She said that it had been really … Continue reading AI in Marketing – slide set from introductory workshop

When it comes to AI adoption, ask “if” and “what”, but also “how”.

Last week, I joined a meeting to discuss a new survey to collect data on AI adoption and use in businesses across various countries, with the aim of informing policymaking. The survey developers are asking some really interesting questions around whether businesses are using AI, what type of AI they were using (e.g., AI for … Continue reading When it comes to AI adoption, ask “if” and “what”, but also “how”.

The value of service robots in embarrassing service encounters

While we tend to think of an attentive member of staff as the epitome of customer service, there are circumstances when customers would much rather not have to interact with one. Maybe they are in a hurry. Maybe they want to avoid small talk. Maybe they prefer to socially distance. Or, maybe, they are a … Continue reading The value of service robots in embarrassing service encounters