Biographical Information

Articles by James Barr

The Coming AI Regulations

Advances in artificial intelligence offer both promise and peril. Regulation is essential to the ethical and responsible development of AI. This article is an overview of the current and future regulations surrounding artificial intelligence.

Smart Manufacturing: Market and Top Companies Overview

Overview of the the smart manufacturing market, including smart manufacturing solutions, security implications, safety considerations, and a look at the future.

Smart Buildings: Overview, Trends, and Examples

An overview of the smart buildings including definition, examples, and market trends.

Robots: Types, Trends, and Applications

Robotic Process Automation: Overview, Trends, and Examples

An overview of robotic process automation (RPA), including types, benefits, use cases, and trends.

OpenAI Company Brief

Founded in 2015 by several AI visionaries including Elon Musk and now-CEO Sam Altman, OpenAI is committed to the audacious goal of "building safe and beneficial artificial general intelligence [AGI] for the benefit of humanity." OpenAI gained widespread, even worldwide, attention in November 2022 with the release of ChatGPT, a generative AI application capable of creating, virtually instantaneously, a variety of original written content including essays, reports, and even computer code, all in response to simple user requests.

Artificial Intelligence: History, Trends, and Outlook

"Intelligence" is generally defined as "the ability to learn or understand, or to deal with new or trying situations." A trait or capacity normally associated with biological beings such as chimpanzees, dolphins, and, of course, humans, recent scientific and engineering developments have enabled computers to exercise "artificial intelligence" or AI. AI is the simulation of human intelligence processes [especially learning and adaptive behavior] by machines, especially computer systems." Artificial intelligence is powering a wide variety of business and consumer applications, such as sifting through mountains of Big Data to extract precious business intelligence or permitting a vehicle to drive itself.

AI Risk Management

Like e-commerce, smartphones, and cloud computing, new technology will often present novel and, in some cases, serious risks. In response to the coming artificial intelligence revolution, enterprise security departments should commit to identifying - and mitigating - known AI risks and anticipating emerging risks based on business, societal, and technological trends.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): Top Ten Trends

Owing to its potential, AI is one of the most active areas of technological development, particularly in process automation, revolutionizing how we work. In a fast-paced environment where one development, like OpenAI's ChatGPT, can impact the world literally overnight, many enterprise leaders are understandably curious - even anxious - about current and coming AI trends, hoping to leverage artificial intelligence platforms to improve their productivity, profitability, and competitiveness.

AI, Automation, and Job Displacement Overview

New technologies - particularly artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics - threaten not only the traditional "blue collar" targets of automation, but their "white collar" counterparts. Variations on the same software that allowed a computer to defeat world champion Garry Kasparov at chess have evolved to perform complex business tasks like legal analysis and medical diagnosis. In the latter case, some diagnostic programs can read x-rays with greater precision than trained radiologists.

ChatGPT Cyber Risks

Overview of the cyber risks associated with Chat GPT. Those risks include exposing sensitive data, generating dangerous malware, aiding phishing attacks, and more.

Chatbots: Overview and Enterprise Applications of AI-based Chatbots

While chatbots in the form of intelligent personal assistants like Siri, Alexa, Windows Copilot, and Google Assistant are popular among the public, an even larger enterprise market has emerged, facilitating what's known as "conversational commerce," and furnishing enterprise employees with new tools for data assimilation.

Generative AI: Market Overview, Trends, and Enterprise Use Cases

One of the latest and most controversial developments in the field of artificial intelligence, generative AI (GAI) refers to programs that can generate original content, literally creating new digital images, video, audio, text, and code.… While generative AI may be troublesome for those in the creative community, it offers great opportunities for enterprise adopters.

Generative AI and the Law

Generative AI in general - and its principal exemplar, ChatGPT, in particular - have experienced intense scrutiny owing to GAI's ability to disrupt or even displace the human element in creative arts, robbing writers, artists, programmers, and other "creators" of their livelihood and denying audiences the opportunity to experience human-generated content. In addition to their adverse effect on employment, generative AI programs have been charged with: (1) Copyright infringement, owing to their use of proprietary materials for training purposes; (2) A propensity to lie or suffer "hallucinations"; and (3) A general disregard for personal privacy. While offering a valuable tool set for both individuals and enterprise clients, generative AI in its present form poses both legal and ethical concerns.

Generative AI Hallucinations Explained

One of the primary problems with GAI "chatbots" is their propensity to make things up, to lie or exaggerate even in situations where a specific fabrication may be obvious. Unfortunately, in many, if not most, cases a GAI deception is not readily discernable, rendering a chatbot's output unreliable, even harmful depending on its context.

Generative AI Risk Management: Frameworks and Best Practices

Many enterprise risk leaders are busy developing generative AI risk regimes: policies, protocols, and procedures designed to ensure that gen AI implementations are safe, secure, and effective.

Intelligent Personal Assistants (IPA): Examples and Use Cases

An intelligent personal assistant (IPA) - also known as a smart or virtual assistant - is an AI-driven software program that helps people complete basic tasks. Typically, an IPA will answer questions and perform actions based on natural language voice commands and location awareness.

What is Machine Learning: Market, Trends and Applications

Machine learning (ML) is an artificial intelligence (AI) technology that enables a system to enhance its awareness and capabilities - that is, to learn - without being explicitly programmed to do so. In some cases, ML systems learn by studying information contained in data warehouses. In other cases, ML systems learn by conducting thousands of data simulations, detecting patterns, and drawing inferences.

Adaptive AI: Market Overview and Applications

As analyst Helen Zhuravel explains, "Traditional AI algorithms, while powerful, struggle to adapt to rapidly evolving market conditions. That's where adaptive AI steps in, revolutionizing decision-making with its ability to learn, adjust, and evolve alongside the ever-changing business landscape. Adaptive AI represents a fundamental shift in how AI systems are designed, implemented, and applied. Traditional AI models are static, relying on pre-defined rules and parameters. Adaptive AI, on the other hand, is dynamic, continuously learning and evolving based on new data and experiences."

AI for Software Development: Opportunities and Challenges

In addition to creating new content in the form of original text, images, audio, and video, a number of generative AI platforms, including OpenAI's popular ChatGPT, can actually write computer code, causing consternation among human programmers and others engaged in software development. While enterprise executives see opportunity in reducing development costs and improving productivity, there are major risks related to program quality, security, and the potential for intellectual property violations.

AI in Finance: Market Overview and Applications

Perhaps the leading adopter of AI is the finance sector. Writing in the Harvard Business Review, analyst Mihir A. Desai states that "The world of finance is an obvious laboratory for exploring the potential effects of AI because information processing is the central function of financial markets. Unsurprisingly, financial institutions of all types invest heavily in technology and data well ahead of other industries in order to compete most effectively."

AI in Healthcare: Applications and Market Overview

The US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reports that in 2021, healthcare spending accounted for 18.3 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP), reaching $4.3 trillion or $12,914 per person. Arcadia Solutions reveals that, even more impressively, approximately 30 percent of the world's data volume is generated by the healthcare industry, a figure that should reach 36 percent by 2025. Alarmingly, Arcadia found that less than 60 percent of healthcare organizations' data is being used to make intelligent business decisions. With healthcare as both a huge economic market and a huge data generator, the application of artificial intelligence to healthcare administration and practice is both essential and inevitable. To remain productive and competitive, leaders in the healthcare sector must proceed - with appropriate care and caution - to incorporate artificial intelligence and machine learning into their operations.

AI in Manufacturing: Market Overview and Applications

AI is presently powering a wide variety of business and consumer applications, such as sifting through mountains of Big Data to extract precious business intelligence, permitting a vehicle to drive itself, or helping a teenager write a term paper. In the enterprise space, artificial intelligence is now present (almost omnipresent) in virtually every industry sector, including finance, healthcare, transportation, energy, and manufacturing, where AI is essential to enabling the information centric Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0.

AI in Transportation: Market Overview and Applications

With the concerns surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) and its capacity to do harm - from eliminating jobs to eliminating civilization - the application of AI to transportation, specifically, ground transportation, offers considerable promise for a safer future. In the field of autonomous, self-driving vehicles, AI will still eliminate jobs - cabbies and truckers, for example - but could render our roads and highways safer by dramatically reducing the incidence and severity of traffic accidents, improving not only vehicle management but traffic and highway management as well.

AI Risk Management Frameworks Overview

Hopefully, to avoid a repeat of today's Internet nightmares, risk professionals have begun the process of developing artificial intelligence risk management frameworks - frameworks inclusive enough to encompass the evolving role of AI, including AI and cloud computing, AI and edge computing, AI and the Internet of Things (IoT), as well as AI and finance, medicine, transportation, and so-called "knowledge work."