Soumitra Dutta on the AI Explosion in the Next 5-10 Years and Our Human Future

The world is literally on the brink of a techno cliff. Although we tend to use digital transformation as a progressive change, according to Soumitra Dutta, Dean of the Saïd Business School at the Oxford University, in a recent interview with Kalli Purie in the India Today Group traced the evolution of Artificial Intelligence, past the hype, to the tremendous changes in jobs, innovation, and the very nature of human connection.

Lake Michigan Analogy: The Exponential Growth in a Nutshell

Soumitra Dutta provides a vivid example to understand the reason why AI is so disruptive at the moment in Lake Michigan.

Imagine filling Lake Michigan (representing the human brain's power) starting with just one ounce of water. If you double that amount every 18 months, the lake looks nearly empty for decades. However, once the "curve" hits its stride, it explodes.

Dutta says that we are approximately 63 years into the modern era of the microprocessor. What we have been experiencing within the past 5-10 years is simply not the tip of the iceberg; it is just going to continue to grow exponentially in the coming 5-10 years.

Foward When It Is Better to Build Forward

The issue of AI is twofold to business leaders. Dutta singles out two types of strategies:

Building forward: This is the use of AI to optimize the current processes in terms of cost, quality, and speed. It is the low-hanging fruit, automated wealth management, or AI-based logistics.

Inventing the Backwards: The more challenging, more disruptive skill is to create something new as a business model.

According to Soumitra Dutta former oxford dean, it is a radical change of corporate culture that is necessary to create backwards. It requires submission to failure. When an organization wishes to innovate, it must embrace the best individuals in its organization to experiment and fail without the cost of losing a career. It is the risk of management of failure, which he says is the real challenge to future-ready enterprises.

The Skilling Transition: The Promise of the Utopia

Technological giants tend to portray a picture of a two-day work week and basic income because of AI. This is what Soumitra Dutta refers to as disingenuous. Although AI will doubtlessly be able to recognize patterns and perform the functions of ordinary minds more successfully than humans do, the process of social change will be acute.

It is not only the loss of jobs, but it is also skill shift. Dutta asks a painful question: How easy is it to take a 40-year-old male truck driver and make this person a childcare minder? These are social points of friction, which cannot be addressed by technology and the market separately. It needs the role of government, regulatory direction, and direct assistance in reskilling.

The Future of Regulation and Web 3.0.

The perspective that Soumitra Dutta Oxford Dean (former) takes is based on the Responsible AI. He shows concern of a divided world in which the US and China are on divergent norms that impede a standard of global safety. Nonetheless, he provides some light at the end of the tunnel on Web 3.0. With the maturity of the technology stack in the coming 10 years, the individual citizens might finally take back their personal information and no longer be at the mercy of tech companies.

An Affirmative Shout on Human Potential

Finally, Soumitra Dutta thinks that AI is going to enable us to discover more of what we love, not only love in relationships, but also in our loved ones, our passions. This is because AI could enable a bad musician to create music that is beautiful or non-artist to share their vision by reducing the barrier to entry in complex skills.