On October 29, I participated as a moderator in a round table of the Internet Governance Forum, in which it was tried to elucidate whether Spain is ready or not for artificial intelligence (AI), and to define, in addition, if it had lost this train. Nuria Oliver, Scientific Director of Vodafone, Chief Data Scientist of the Data Pop Alliance (Harvard and MIT Media Lab) and Engineer of the Year by COIT; Richard Benjamins, Telefónica Data and AI Ambassador; and Felipe García Montesinos, founder and CEO of the startup Knowdle, tried in an hour and a half to defend their respective positions around the quiz of the question posed. The conclusion? Spain is not ready for artificial intelligence, and we have probably already missed the boat.
And it aired it last July a study by Fujitsu and consulting firm Pierre Audoin Consultants, who said that although most companies are interested in is ba n by artificial intelligence, only 17% of them considered strategically important IA for the future of their businesses, and only 11% were already implementing artificial intelligence strategies.
This summer report has now been joined by another recent one, prepared by EY and presented last week by the president of Microsoft Ibérica, Pilar López, in which the conclusion comes to be very similar to both the Fujitsu study and the which was reflected in the Internet Governance Forum: “Spanish organizations are behind their European counterparts in the implementation of artificial intelligence.”
Although the Study highlights that most of the companies surveyed in Spain, 65%, have plans, pilot projects or proofs of concept around artificial intelligence technologies, only 20% have AI solutions in operation, twelve points below the European average. Pilar López pointed out in the presentation of the report that, “Advances in Artificial Intelligence are creating new opportunities for Spanish companies to accelerate innovation, improve their competitiveness and lead their sector of activity, but organizations in Spain must close the existing gap with their European counterparts, accelerating their deployment to deepen their digital transformation and improve their competitive position ”.
As part of the study, Microsoft defines a roadmap with five key steps to accelerate the deployment of artificial intelligence in organizations in Spain, with the aim of moving from the pilot project phase to the implementation of solutions: make an approximation consistent with AI , prioritizing the scope of application of solutions, defining their scope and specific business needs; clearly communicate objectives in relation to AI; have the necessary skills, abilities and knowledge required to progress; have valid data to “feed” artificial intelligence applications; and build trust in AI .
Although, from what all the studies say, we have missed the train, and the digital divide with other countries is widening, Spain should not stop developing AI at its own pace to transform itself, but always with a focus in which it always be “people first, then technology.” Oliver, Benjamins and Montesinos also said this at the Artificial Intelligence table at the Governance Forum: “The algorithms that regulate AI, even if they are very complex, must always be kept within the parameters of human comprehensibility. They have to have a good purpose, and not have a negative impact on people’s rights ”.
