Your groundbreaking oxygen monitoring technology failed to gain traction during the covid epidemic, and you desperately need investment for one last attempt to break into the market. So why not rebrand your product as an AI device: after all the ill-fated augmented reality glasses are making a comeback, this time with added AI? OK, so your AI technology is a world away from that which has helped startups achieve multibillion-dollar valuations, in fact it is merely a relatively primitive form of machine learning. Not a chatbot, or generative AI, but merely pattern matching software, in fact it is not so much different from what you had before your original investors tiptoed out of the door. At a stretch there is a Large Language Model (LLM) of sorts, and the device has been ‘learning’ from thousands of patient outcomes. However, the chance that one day it will help researchers find a cure for COPD are vanishingly small.
As well that ‘LLM’ is not owned by your company but belongs to a hospital trust and could well slip beyond your grasp should a large US high tech company land a contract to modernise the NHS’s IT infrastructure.
AI is the latest technology to make things move in investor’s trousers and chatbots occupy the part of the frontal lobe once assigned to crypto currencies. In the wildest dreams of those with loose wallets, physical ones rather than the virtual variety, crypto coins would one day become common currency, at the very least as popular as PayPal. Unfortunately, the blockchain technology which supports crypto currency transactions is much like digital double entry bookkeeping on steroids with each transaction requiring far more computing power than an email, a credit card payment or handing over physical cash – which requires none. To date blockchains and (not so) distributed ledgers remain the domain of a handful of corporations with access to significant IT infrastructure.
For ‘blockchain’ read ‘Large Language Model’ and you get an idea where your investment in AI is headed. One day quantum computers might provide the processing power a truly intelligent device requires and at least you have the technology to determine how long investors can hold their breath.
During the conversation with the robot, it became clear how much processing power would be required to justify claims, and the warnings, of the godfathers of AI. If your money is on a major tech company passing off an incremental upgrade to their Internet search or predictive text as AI, then your investment is probably Blue Chip. If you are betting on a niche medical device based on legacy technology transformed by the prefix ‘AI powered’ then the chances are you have stumbled on this year’s FTX.