Amazon's Jeff Bezos: 'It's the first inning' of AI
RANCHOS PALOS VERDES, California -- If you're excited about artificial intelligence and machine learning now, just wait until you see what's coming around the bend.
Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, the company behind one of the most popular consumer-grade home AI devices on the market -- Amazon Echo and its Alexa voice assistant -- told The Verge's Walt Mossberg at the annual Code Conference on Tuesday night that "It’s the first inning. It might even be the first guys up at bat. We're on the edge of the golden age [of AI]."
Bezos revealed that Amazon was working on Alexa technology for four years behind the scenes before bringing it to market. "There is so much more to come. It's just the tip of the iceberg," he said.
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One of the reasons there's so much more to come in AI from Amazon and others is that, as Bezos sees it, the level of machine learning we currently have is still orders of magnitude different than what humans are capable of.
Voice systems have been a dream of science fiction for decades, noted Bezos, and it's finally coming true. He cautioned, though, that voice systems like Alexa, which the company has opened to partners with a pair of SDKs, will not mark the end of smartphones. "People have eyes," he said. Similarly, they like to touch screens. So he sees these voice systems as augmenting technology, but not fully replacing what consumers already like.
Intelligent systems like Amazon's Alexa rely heavily on vast amounts of personal user data. Bezos believes Amazon gets this right. "If you take the totality of privacy and our ability to store large amounts of info, to use it as costumers actually want us to use it….they genuinely like it." Without that data, Alexa wouldn't know as much about you and Amazon, in general, wouldn't even know your purchase history.
The solution, as Bezos sees it, is transparency. "You have to be clear about what you’re doing. You have to be obviously clear," he said.
Bezos also foresees a diverse world of AI's. "There will be a lot of intelligent agents in the world. You may not ask the same AI for everything. Some will be better than others [at certain things]."
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Lance Ulanoff was Chief Correspondent and Editor-at-Large of Mashable. Lance acted as a senior member of the editing team, with a focus on defining internal and curated opinion content. He also helped develop staff-wide alternative story-telling skills and implementation of social media tools during live events. Prior to joining Mashable in September 2011 Lance Ulanoff served as Editor in Chief of PCMag.com and Senior Vice President of Content for the Ziff Davis, Inc. While there, he guided the brand to a 100% digital existence and oversaw content strategy for all of Ziff Davis’ Web sites. His long-running column on PCMag.com earned him a Bronze award from the ASBPE. Winmag.com, HomePC.com and PCMag.com were all been honored under Lance’s guidance.He makes frequent appearances on national, international, and local news programs including Fox News, the Today Show, Good Morning America, Kelly and Michael, CNBC, CNN and the BBC.He has also offered commentary on National Public Radio and been interviewed by newspapers and radio stations around the country. Lance has been an invited guest speaker at numerous technology conferences including SXSW, Think Mobile, CEA Line Shows, Digital Life, RoboBusiness, RoboNexus, Business Foresight and Digital Media Wire’s Games and Mobile Forum.
