Prominent industry experts share their predictions for the year ahead.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are maturing from the tech world’s favorite buzzwords to indispensable solutions for real-world problems. What can we expect in terms of their development in 2022? Renowned industry experts and members of the Oxylabs AI & ML Advisory Board, Pujaa Rajan and Gautam Kedia from Stripe, Ali Chaudhry from University College London, and AI researcher Jonas Kubilius share their views.
Where AI Meets Blockchain
Pujaa Rajan, Machine Learning Engineer at Stripe and AI & ML Advisory Board member at Oxylabs, believes that some of the most interesting new developments will be where AI meets blockchain technology.
According to her, the advent of Web3 and crypto will have an interesting intersection with artificial intelligence in 2022. Together, AI and blockchain have applications in finance, healthcare, and more.
“Blockchain has the potential to give people the power to manage data privacy and security. Imagine a world where you own your data and/or algorithms, control their transparency, and maybe even get paid for your data. Currently, a lot of AI applications do not run on the blockchain because of latency issues and data centralization. However, advancements in both fields could change this in 2022,” says Pujaa.
A machine learning expert predicts that we may start to see decentralized artificial intelligence in the new decentralized web.
In this new world, machines may make decisions on data around the world independently without the middleman or middlewoman.
While I don’t think we’ll get this far in one year alone, we still need to be aware of the perpetuation of any existing biases in Web3 while we are still building the foundation of this new world,” argues Pujaa.
Gautam Kedia, Machine Learning Engineering Manager at Stripe and Oxylabs Advisory Board member, has similar hopes for Web3: “In my view, Web3 will likely release its first killer application,” he says.
Natural Language Processing Going Mainstream
Jonas Kubilius, co-founder and senior AI engineer at Three Thirds and member of the Oxylabs Advisory Board, expects to see the continued emergence of tools for managing various aspects of ML and AI infrastructure and operations.
“With this ecosystem maturing, more ML and AI solutions will be successfully deployed at scale and start bringing value to customers. Personally, I'm really hoping to see content generation and speech-to-text and text-to-speech products go mainstream,” says Jonas.
And Ali Chaudhry, a researcher at University College London who also serves on the Oxylabs Advisory Board, backs up these claims.
“Considering the increased accuracy of natural language processing (NLP) techniques in recent years, we will see a rise in NLP-powered tools and apps. Reinforcement learning will continue to play an important role in AI breakthroughs and real-world deployments,” says Ali.
Meanwhile, Gautam Kedia believes that some of the industries where we could see AI breakthroughs will be the health industry and transport: “AI will be more widely used in medical developments. Self-driving robotaxis will start challenging traditional rideshare,” he says.
Focus on AI Ethics
On the other hand, Ali Chaudhry believes that in 2022 we will see more regulations specifically targeting AI systems deployed in the real world. Companies will be required to share more information on how they build AI systems and what their limitations are.
“Last year, I predicted more real-world AI failures, and we have recently seen Zillow’s AI debacle along with Facebook stepping back from facial recognition systems. This trend may unfortunately continue into 2022 as well, as we see more AI failures in real-world deployments,” says Ali.
He adds that there will be more publications on AI ethics by the industry and academia as well. We will also see a great influx of talent in the data science and artificial intelligence fields to meet the growing needs of companies becoming data-driven and AI-ready.
Oxylabs AI & ML Advisory Board comprises leading figures in the machine learning, AI, and data science industries, many of whom have experience working for highly reputable organisations such as NASA, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and UCL. The Board consists of five members: AI researchers Ali Chaudhry from University College London and Jonas Kubilius from Three Thirds, Pujaa Rajan and Gautam Kedia from Stripe, and renowned data science consultant Adi Andrei. The board supports Oxylabs’ commitment to innovation by providing expertise and guidance on new technology developments.
Authors: Pujaa Rajan Machine Learning engineer at Stripe.
Gautam Kedia Machine Learning Engineering Manager at Stripe and Oxylabs Advisory Board member.
Ali Chaudhry from University College London.
Jonas Kubilius, AI researcher.