BLOCK 101: Angelo Dalli and the future of AI

Interviewed by SiGMA’s own Kamil, Angelo Dalli spoke about the presence AI had in today’s economy, how it all worked and his ambitious plans for Umnai on BLOCK101

When mentioning AI, what initially comes to mind in most of the population is Skynet’s silvery monsters in Terminator or the red eye of HAL9000. Hence, Kamil began by platforming one of the most pivotal and even divisive points of contention when it came to artificial intelligence; “Will we see humans and machines working together or against each other?”

Dalli argued that AI was there to help and uplift humanity rather than making them redundant.

It should be a tool that people use to achieve more, get the maximum potential out and to achieve new things. AI should definitely not be working against people but for people.

He also referenced the fact that AI governance also posed an issue. Making artificial intelligence do what you want in the way that you want it to sometimes proves difficult. Likening it to a genie in a lamp, the results that one would get from AI are not necessarily ones that one would really want from the technology.

Moving forward, Kamil then elicited the current direction the global AI sector was following and if we should be worried that it was treading too closely to a dark path.

Dalli responded by stating that, luckily enough, AI seemed to be on a path of growth. This being said, he also noted that current iterations of AI technology were limited.

The lower hanging fruits are still there but people are rapidly solving them. Now we’re looking towards applying AI in more interesting and lucrative ways with more value added. Applications that really impact human lives, this is where things start to get interesting.

Towards the next point, Kamil asked Dalli to elaborate on where we could find AI buttressing our life in the modern day rather than the near future.

AI is in everything. In your smartphone, when you unlock it with your face, that’s AI is looking at the point-cloud on your face. When you take a photo, your mobile enhances it automatically. That’s it using an AI algorithm to reconstruct the image and make it better

From medical diagnosis to the gig economy, AI has already come to shape most of our everyday tools and augment them for the better.

When asked about his own ambitions in the space, Dalli had a lot to say about Umnai and the future of AI integration.

I’m focusing on applications that impact human lives directly when it comes to decision-making by AI that impacts something in a person’s daily life.

For example, if we look at FinTech, if you’re giving a loan or not to a person. If you’re in medicine, what you give someone in particular, are they going to use this or not. So on and so forth. These are called high-impact risk applications and this is my focus at the moment, but there is a broad application of this.

Moving towards novel methods, Dalli spoke about how new methods of utilizing and structuring AI were spearheading a new generation of technological development.

We have recognized the limits of current deep learning methods and how we can take it forward so we have created a new architecture called neuro-symbolic AI, and basically this marries the best of both worlds (that of neural AI and symbolic AI).

Umnai, which is currently amassing capital, has the potential to be at the forefront of this incoming revolution. Given that AI is a broad tool that can and will probably be applied to any industry, enhancing its efficiency while reducing errors, now may be the time to get behind the deep tech that will make or break the future.

I’m lucky that we have a very good team around us who will be able to handle queries and also reach out to make sure that we educate people on how to use our new technology, work with proof of concepts prototypes, and then take it to a more commercial level.

For more on AI, including the dark paths we need to avoid with its proliferation and the positive outcomes of technologically literate policy, check out the entire podcast here.

AIBC Americas debuts in Toronto:

Following the massive success that was AIBC Asia, the Summit’s first ever physical debut in the Americas is set to take Toronto by storm this June. Uniting the best and brightest in the emerging tech world, AIBC Americas will feature leading policy makers, executives, technologists and visionaries in groundbreaking areas such as AI, Blockchain and Quantum Computing. The Summit will be composed of three days of thought-leading panels, inspiring keynotes and a massive amount of opportunities to network, leaving our delegates several steps closer to the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Join us from the 6th till the 9th of June in Toronto!