AI Symposium: Technology will usher in new era for business world

CORALVILLE, Iowa – When it comes to understanding artificial intelligence (AI), Greg Edwards wants people in the business world to remember this date: Sept. 4, 1882. That’s the day part of New York City was first lit up by electrical lights. That day ushered in a new era – and so will AI technology, according […]

CORALVILLE, Iowa – When it comes to understanding artificial intelligence (AI), Greg Edwards wants people in the business world to remember this date: Sept. 4, 1882. That’s the day part of New York City was first lit up by electrical lights.

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That day ushered in a new era – and so will AI technology, according to Mr. Edwards, a technology entrepreneur who has been dealing with AI issues for the past nine years. “I see this on the scale of electricity or the industrial revolution. … It will be like the day (electrical) lights were first turned on in New York City. It’s going to be that impactful,” said Mr. Edwards, the CEO of Canauri, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based company that helps protect other companies against ransomware attacks. Mr. Edwards and other technology industry experts gave about 180 people from the business and education communities a glimpse into the rapidly changing world of AI on Thursday, Dec. 7, during the Corridor Media Group’s new AI Symposium. That event, held at the Hyatt Regency Coralville Hotel & Convention Center, was presented by the North Liberty, Iowa-based media company, which owns the Quad Cities Regional Business Journal and Corridor Business Journal. The AI Symposium sponsors were: BrownWinick Law, Involta, the Iowa Technology Institute and the Tippie College of Business. John Lohman, president and CEO of the Corridor Media Group, said AI technology is quickly revolutionizing the business community. A top goal of the symposium was to present information that will help people in that community make better decisions for their organizations. Many attendees Thursday were treating it as a fact-finding mission. “I hope to learn more about AI and where it’s going. … It’s certainly on everybody’s roadmap right now and we all see its coming our way,” Travis Harbour, an account executive with Involta, a Cedar Rapids networking software company, said at the start of Thursday's symposium. Mr. Harbour added that he doesn’t use AI at the moment, but many of his customers do. He wants to keep up with the changing and advancing technology. Also attending was David Keller, curriculum assessment specialist at Kirkwood Community College. He wanted to see how AI could impact students and classes at Kirkwood. “I want to know how we can do better at the college when it comes to AI,” he added. Most other members of the audience were also on a fact-finding mission. Mr. Edwards was presenting them with some of those facts during his “The Business Impact of AI” presentation. Perhaps the biggest impact of AI could be on jobs and the loss of jobs. “Will jobs be taken away? Yes. But it will also create jobs,” he added. Some jobs are already falling victim to AI technology. During his presentation, Mr. Edwards said the firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas – an employment agency that provides outplacement and executive coaching services – claimed this spring that 3,900 jobs have been lost in May of this year. All those job cuts came in the technology industry. By this October, those job losses increased a bit, to around 4,100. But the darkest prediction came from the investment bank Goldman Sachs a few months ago when it claimed that 300 million jobs could eventually be lost due to advancing AI technology, Mr. Edwards said, citing the report. “Extrapolating our estimates globally suggests that generative AI could expose the equivalent of 300 (million) full-time jobs to automation,” according to an excerpt form the Goldman Sachs report. Part of the report also states: “The good news is that worker displacement from automation has historically been offset by creation of new jobs, and the emergence of new occupations following technological innovations accounts for the vast majority of long-run employment growth.” Mr. Edwards said he doubts all the conclusions of that report. He added that, in time, 300 million jobs could be changed, but not eliminated. But, he told the crowd at the symposium that businesses need to start preparing for the changes. “As a business leader, you have to accept that will happen,” he said. Part of that preparation will come in education. Mr. Edwards said business leaders need to start getting themselves ready for the AI future by using some of the AI tools that are now available. He suggested the crowd start using include: ChatGPT, Anthropic Claude, Beautiful AI  and Tome. Millions of people have already started using the new technology. For instance, Mr. Edwards showed the audience a chart displaying how long it took various new technologies to gain 100 million users. Cell phones, for example, took 16 years to get to that 100 million-user mark.  But it took ChatGPT – a tool that lets users enter prompts to receive humanlike images, text or videos that are created by AI – two months to hit that mark. “This is changing so fast. … It’s going to be a challenge,” he added. Business leaders around the world have already started using AI for various jobs. Some of those jobs include inventory control, automating the delivery and event customer service. The inaugural AI symposium other presentations included:

• Milan Sonka, director of the Iowa Initiative for Artificial Intelligence, discussed “Dispelling the Myths of AI.”
• Steven Mitchell, founder of Componica, LCC., gave a presentation on “AI Applications and Tools.”
• The event ended with a panel discussion on AI featuring Scott Evers of Involta; Patrick Fan, a professor at the Tippie School of Business; Lee Henderson, of BrownWinick Law; Aaron Santos of EMC Insurance; and Jaime Spencer of Magid Communications.