By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) is taking over the business world. Or is it?

Joel Delmaire, JobAdder’s chief product officer, believes AI is still in its infancy. It will take some time before the rest of the business world and the community at large catches up with it.

He said many companies did not yet understand it – but it was easy to see why.

“Keep in mind the technology is only two years old. Generative AI is really young in the industry,” Mr Delmaire told Talking Business.

“It takes a lot of time for companies to understand it, adopt it, use it in the right way and I would not say today it’s being widely used or widely deployed.

“But I would imagine in the next two to three years, you will see an explosion of its use in our day to day life.” 

The case for AI in recruitment

Job Adder is a recruitment software company, so Mr Delmaire is particularly familiar with the all the issues that come up with AI use in the recruitment space. However, he can talk about its application more broadly,

He said the government was quite correctly developing AI legislation to protect the community. At the same time, it could not develop legislation that would stop businesses from innovating.

“The challenge is, if you want to do that, you can become over-specific, in the way you prescribe working with AI and it puts a burden that is quite significant, especially for small companies in terms of applying the regulation to the point where you stifle innovation,” Mr Delamaire  said.

“We’ve seen that with all the technologies in the past. It’s a really hard line to balance, specifically because the problem is so broad.”

Mr Delmaire said he was not convinced Australia would be able to train enough AI specialists fast enough. The regulations, he said, make the assumption that all companies will be able to find the talent and people who can comply.

“It’s a very tricky profile to find because you need, on one hand, to be familiar with legislation and regulation and on the other hand deep in the technology – and there are very few people in the market that can do that,” he said.

“The challenge in that space is it might create a very uneven playing field.

“Companies that are bigger can afford the resources, that can find the talent and pay premium talent and you take the risk of having smaller companies being pushed out in the ability to work in that space,” Mr Delmaire said.

“I would be very concerned to be a start-up trying to build my new business on something that’s backed by AI today, with what can happen in the short term.”

Regulators will help level AI playing field

Mr Delmaire said one of the good points was that regulators around the world were moving in the same direction.

“Hopefully we don’t end up in a place where we have pockets of different legislation between the EU, the UK, the US and Australia,” he said.

As an example In the recruitment space, if a candidate writes in and nominates dates for interviews, AI can easily process that. If AI gets it wrong, it’s no big deal. That can be easily fixed with a phone call or email.

But an important issue with AI is ethics. AI, after all, draws its data from the internet and it is very easy to have biases come into its guidance. AI can very easily replicate those biases.

“The challenge with AI is it looks smart. It can say absolutely the wrong thing and be 100 percent wrong,” Mr Delmaire said.

Having AI vetted by human beings would help. However, even that has limitations.

“One of the answers is to always have a human in the loop, but then you lose some of the benefits so you probably want to do that when it’s really critical that you don’t get it wrong,” Mr Delmaire said.

“Keeping in mind that humans are also biased, either consciously or unconsciously … You probably want to make sure that your AI is not more biased than the average human, but you will never protect from the fact that we are human and we are biased.”

www.jobadder.com

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-35-interview-with-joel-delmaire-from-jobadd

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MAIN STREET Alliance (MSA) – the USA’s nationwide network of small business owners advocating for inclusive economic policies – has welcomed the recent legal declaration that Google operates as “a monopolist in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act”.

This landmark decision is a significant win for small business owners across the nation, ensuring a fairer and more competitive digital marketplace, according to Main Street Alliance.

Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling in the case of United States of America vs Google LLC found that Google had unlawfully maintained its monopoly by excluding rivals from the general search engine market.

This exclusionary conduct, according to Main Street Alliance, has stifled competition, raised prices for advertisers, and deprived consumers of potential higher-quality search alternatives.

Main Street calls it a ‘win’ for small business owners

The Main Street Alliance has long championed fair competition and equitable access to resources for small businesses. The ruling against Google aligns with the alliance’s mission to combat corporate consolidation and advocate for policies that level the playing field for small businesses. 

“This decision is a monumental step towards restoring fairness in the marketplace,” Main Street Alliance executive director, Richard Trent said.

“For too long, small businesses have struggled against the overwhelming dominance of corporate giants like Google. This ruling not only recognises the anti-competitive practices that have disadvantaged small businesses but also sets a precedent for stronger enforcement of antitrust laws.”

Decision helps empower entrepreneurs

Australia is similar to the US in the way that small business are the backbone of the American economy, fostering innovation, creating jobs, and strengthening communities.

However, Main Street Alliance members have pointed out for decades how the monopolistic practices of companies like Google have hindered the growth and success of countless entrepreneurs.

Mr Trent said by paying billions to secure default search engine status on popular devices, Google had effectively prevented competitors from gaining a foothold, “thereby limiting consumer choice and stifling innovation”.
Traditionally, Main Street has been synonymous with bricks-and-mortar businesses, but this ruling has highlighted the “growing importance of online entrepreneurs who also deserve protection from monopolistic overreach”.

“Ensuring a level playing field in the digital marketplace is essential for the success of all small business owners, whether they operate physical stores or online enterprises,” a Main Street Alliance statement read.

Next steps and broader implications

As the case moves into the remedy phase, Main Street Alliance is urging the court to implement measures that will effectively dismantle Google’s monopoly and promote competition.

Potential remedies Main Street put forward include ending exclusive dealing contracts, breaking up Google's various business segments, or requiring the company to share data with competitors.

The Main Street Alliance was founded in 2006, when small business owners in Maine, Washington, Oregon, and a few other states united to advocate for healthcare reform. The campaign shed light on the power of small business organisation and the need for Main Street voices in policy discussions.

Now the Main Street Alliance champions the voices of small business owners nationwide to help create a thriving economy. The alliance cultivates a growing network of entrepreneurs, connecting them with resources to build sustainable enterprises.

Today the Main Street Alliance membership drives state and federal policymaking that “gives a fair shot to small businesses and strengthens communities nationwide”. The alliance focuses on meaningful engagement and research-backed advocacy, building a coalition of citizens and elected leaders committed to giving entrepreneurs a fair shot at success.

www.mainstreetalliance.org

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By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

GOLDMAN SACHS predicts that 300 million jobs will be lost or degraded by artificial intelligence (AI).

But Gartner, the company that builds strategies in the IT sector, says AI – and its most popular emination so far, ChatGPT – are net creators of jobs.

Gartner Australia’s vice president of human resources (HR) advisory, Aaron McEwan said it was hard to envisage jobs that would not be impacted by automation – but what automation tends to do is push jobs up the value and complexity bar. 

“There probably will be a handful of jobs that might be eliminated altogether, but the more likely scenario is that these types of technologies impact all jobs and change them,” Mr McEwan told Talking Business.

“A more likely scenario is that parts of people’s jobs will be carved away and automated and generally that tends to be less complex repeatable work,” Mr McEwan said.

Creative, artistic pursuits impacted?

Mr McEwan said with the speed of the adoption of generative AI, areas that were thought to be immune to automation, like the more creative and artistic pursuits, were likely to impacted.

But even then, he said, there were limits to what impact AI could have on artists as it would push that work up the complexity bar.

“So while artists might be in a bit of strife because it’s now cheap and easy to create artworks, I’m not sure the average punter is going to be wanting to hang an AI-generated piece of art on their wall because there will be millions and millions of them, so we’ll be looking for more increasingly interesting work,” Mr McEwan said.

What kind of insurance against AI?

A good example on how AI would change work could in the insurance sector.

Five years ago, the calls coming in to a customer service rep working in a call centre would have been about a change of address or change of policy. All that work now can, and will be, handled by automated processes of chatbots and algorithms.

But we are living in a time when the claims are rising because of the impact of climate change. So people will call in to that rep now when they have lost a house due to a flood or bushfire – and the complexity of those claims will have increased.

“So even though you might not be fielding a bunch of calls about updating policies, the most likely calls they will be taking will be ‘I’ve just lost my house to a natural disaster and I may have even lost members of my family or beloved pets’,” he said.

“So the requirement on the human being that fields that call is a higher order of cognitive complexity but, more importantly, a higher order of emotional complexity.

“So the work just gets harder and more complex, it doesn’t necessarily go away.”

No emotion in AI

So ChatGPT is very good at wordsmithing, but at this stage it does not understand the emotional complexity that goes into communications. Which is why some human vetting is essential with AI.

Mr McEwan said AI would dramatically reduce the cost of software development. It will potentially democratise it and place it in the hands of employees who will become “citizen developers”.

“One of the exciting elements of the future is the degree and speed at which citizen developers will tackle the most annoyingly minute components of people’s work and hopefully eradicate and improve those,” Mr McEwan said.

 “Rather than needing to understand coding, what you need to understand is how to work with a generative AI application, put the right inputs in so that you get the right responses from it.”

www.gartner.com.au

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business10-interview-with-aaron-mcewan-from-gartner

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THE FEDERAL Government published industry responses for reforms to Australia’s cyber security legislation on Thursday, including those from Macquarie Technology Group, AWS, CyberCX, AISA, Tech Council of Australia, Telstra and others.

In its submission, the Macquarie group calls for the creation of a co-regulatory industry group modelled on the existing Communications Alliance, which it says will foster collaboration with the Australian Signals Directorate and National Cyber Coordinator.

The company also called for smaller businesses not to be exempted from reporting rules, enabling better threat intelligence sharing to support smaller businesses in that regard. Macquarie further called for the government’s proposed Cyber Incident Review Board (CIRB) not to be modelled on the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (as has been suggested), and for business-critical data to be regulated under the Security Of Critical Infrastructure (SOCI) Act, not the Privacy Act.

Other key points raised in the Macquarie submission included not limiting ransomware reporting obligations to businesses of a certain size or threshold; including small businesses in the regulatory process so that threat sharing would be made simpler; the suggestion of what it called a new Cyber Alliance Board to boost collaboration; the Federal Government taking a lead from other co-regulatory approaches, such as those used in the telecommunications sector; and looking at other models both national and international. 

In its submission Macquarie gave its views on each of these areas:

“Macquarie is however concerned about limiting this [ransomware] reporting obligation to businesses of a certain size or threshold. This concern is twofold. Firstly, Macquarie repeats its general concerns regarding exceptions to cyber security standards. In order to close the gaps in our current legislative and regulatory framework for cyber security (an aim of the Paper), we need a fulsome legislative response rather than have specific businesses not subject to the regimes.

“Macquarie submits that the way to assist small businesses and the perception that they may not be in a position to absorb the additional regulatory burden imposed by a new reporting obligation is to make the threat sharing as simple as possible.

“We strongly acknowledge the importance of this collaboration [between the ASD Cyber Coordinator] and have considered the issue in detail and suggest that Government consider the establishment of a Cyber Alliance Board to assist this objective.

“To best achieve outcomes while working together we suggest the Australian Government look to other co-regulatory approaches to support and encourage industry self-regulation as models for best practice. The telco sector in specific, which is a related field (with technology, data and connectivity being at the core), provides a useful precedent for co-regulation.

“The co-regulatory model, or Cyber Alliance Board, could focus specifically on co-regulatory and legislative matters while keeping the existing [Trusted Information Sharing Network] TISN, industry and security discussions separate. For example, the current SOCI reviews the subject of this paper and those scheduled for 2025 would clearly benefit from a legislative guidance from key cyber industry stakeholders. 

“The United States’ Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) is a potential model [for the CIRB]. However, we disagree that the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is a precedent that should be followed. The ATSB was formed on 1 July 1999 and it investigates transport safety matters. This is a very established area with known and recognised risks and solutions which have been drawn from decades of research and data. Cyber is far less known.

“We have heard some feedback from members of industry that the best place for regulating business critical data is the Privacy Act. We strongly disagree. The Privacy Act does not provide guidance and regulation on how to best store data and respond to breaches. The SOCI regime does. The Government must look beyond an individual rights approach which the Privacy Act provides.”

Macquarie’s full submission can be read here. 

www.macquarietechnologygroup.com

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