As artificial intelligence continues its skyrocketing evolution into technology areas far and wide, events and conferences aim to bring together business executives to talk about the practical uses of AI for enterprises within specific market segments.
AI World will be held in Boston from Dec. 3 to 5, 2018, at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston.
Major themes in AI
In addition to the major plenary sessions, tracks at AI World are divided into several market areas, including how to implement AI for enterprises, moving from big data to AI, utilizing AI with real-time Internet of Things (IoT), and specific uses of AI in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.
Most of the evolution within the AI world has been focused on using machine learning and deep learning techniques within the pharma and healthcare space, either to help companies develop new drug treatments, or to analyze images to help with disease diagnosis.
In the “AI in Pharma” track, sessions will discuss the need for more data, the potential for advanced analytics, how data can be made “machine learnable”, and why some in the industry are finding AI more difficult to implement.
In the “AI in Healthcare” track, sessions will show how AI is being used for infection detection, use cases around imaging for clinical care, and how companies can develop more AI-enabled applications and use AI to drive operational intelligence.
A separate cognitive computing track will discuss bigger picture AI issues, especially around workforce issues such as “who will build new AI-on-board applications?” what works and doesn’t, and addressing the anxiety around AI taking over human tasks.
A panel entitled “Emerging Standards for Ethics in AI – Fact or Fiction?” will gather experts from higher education to discuss how software developers, academics, governments, and businesses will address AI-based systems ethics.
Conference keynotes at AI World
On Monday, Dec. 3, Jim Freeze, CMO at Interactions, will open the conference with a keynote discussing how AI can be a brand differentiator for companies, with technologies such as chatbots and virtual assistants helping to transform the customer experience.
Dr. Cynthia Breazeal will discuss the future of enterprise AI at AI World.
Later that day, a keynote focusing on AI trends and self-driving cars will be given by Lance B. Eliot, CEO at Techbrium.
The session aims to cover “the gamut of AI areas including machine learning, natural language processing, vision system processing, edge computing, blockchain, IoT, expert systems, AI action planning, human computer interfaces, and other timely topics. You will discover the good, the bad, and the ugly about present-day AI self-driving cars, and predictions of where this field is heading.”
On Tuesday, Dec. 4, Nathaniel Gates, CEO at Alegion, will explain why “AI Was Never Meant for Humans”, indicating that the future will include AI interacting with other AI.
Additional keynotes will cover financial AI, artificial general intelligence, AI at work, and executive roundtables on the adoption and integration of AI in pharma and healthcare.
On Wednesday, Dec. 5, the future of enterprise AI will be discussed on a panel with experts from MIT, including Cynthia Breazeal, Abby Everett Jaques, and Nicholas Roy. The session promises “a content-rich discussion about cutting edge research in AI, ethical considerations, and the role of MIT in the intelligent future.”
Other sessions include a discussion of pitfalls for organizations around AI ethics, a use case of AI in Canada, and an executive roundtable around the state of international AI activities.
Pavilions, expo halls, and other workshops
In addition to the main conference keynotes and tracks, AI World aims to have other presentations within the AI Technology Solutions Theater, with sessions by officials from Accenture, ClearPath Robotics, Dataiku, DataRobot, DDN Storage, Dell, HPE, and others. The AI Startup Pavilion will see demonstrations from startup companies providing products and services in AI for enterprises.
The AI Startup Awards will be held on Wednesday, Dec. 5, at 12 noon, honoring the best and brightest entrepreneurial AI ventures, and two sessions from the XPRIZE Innovation Program will discuss some of their work.
For those interested in more hands-on training, a workshop around how to build intelligent assistants and chatbots will be held on Tuesday, Dec. 4, from 1 to 4:15 p.m.
Like many events, the chance for attendees to network with each other will be abundant at AI World, including networking lunches each of the three days, and a networking reception on Tuesday evening.
The conference-at-a-glance is available here. Robotics Business Review editors will be attending the show, and we plan on having updates and articles from the show next week.
