Marks and Spencer’s Conor Rose shares snippets from artificial intelligence discussion panel

Conor Rose, Principal Strategist at Marks and Spencer, has taken to social media to discuss artificial intelligence, following his participation in a discussion panel on this hottest of tech topics.

In a LinkedIn post, Rose said: “Seems to be ‘big news’ every day on AI – I’m not an expert and about to offer my view, but the panel I hosted on artificial intelligence was full of brilliant minds (and lovely humans to talk to), and too good not to share snippets from.”

The panel consisted of: Russell Johnson, Chief Data Scientist at M&S; Dr. Raoul-Gabriel Urma, CEO Cambridge Spark; Louise Baird, RITTech, People Analytics Mgr and L7 AI Fellow; Mary Guettel, AI Lead at Slalom.

Here’s what stood out to Rose.

What’s going on with generative AI?

Johnson: Essentially the latest phase of AI. Information is generating new information by itself. Think of a library of books. Overnight, the books create babies of brand new books that weren’t there before.

What should we do to not end up with armageddon?

Guettel: Be demanding from the outset; how data is used, what data is used, where it’s stored, what algorithms are doing.

Johnson: Don’t let technology lead the way and create noise. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Keep humans in the loop to explain, check, add value and maintain trust.

The dangers if we don’t.

Urma: Amplification of misinformation and diminishing of true critical thinking. Current generations have lived with and without this. If information and content is self-generated at scale, and accessible – what about those who live a life only knowing this? How do you learn to be critical in thinking?

Guettel: Amplified bias. Bad input = bad output. Women are a big example who historically have been excluded from data sets, for example in healthcare. Until new, inclusive datasets are generated, how can anything be built to deliver inclusive outcomes for the whole of society?

How can it help us if we get it right?

Urma: Did his prep using ChatGPT to see how his instinctual answers benchmarked - a live use case.

Baird: Doing what we already do (of the same or better quality), faster. Greater satisfaction too - being able to spend time using your talents more meaningfully whether you’re a writer or a coder.

Guettel: Doing things we’ve not been able to do before without mass time and funding investment, such as prosthetic limb training and new drug discovery in healthcare.

What should we stop, to help us all unlock it?

Guettel: Stop thinking it’s someone else’s business – we’re all accountable to make the most of it and do it well.

Baird: Stop putting up mental barriers because you don’t have the technical skills. Be open, ask questions, connect with the right people and you’ll likely unlock a lot of value for yourself.

Predictions. Let’s come back to this in a few years...

Urma: All kids using it for their homework.

Baird: Mass democratisation of generative AI tools and ChatGPT becomes a verb.

Johnson: Domain switching between large language models that will make ChatGPT seem like a small part of a giant whole.

Guettel: Growth of small businesses creating and leveraging AI powerfully in their niches. A complete change to how we all do business.

Carrefour

Carrefour recently produced its first ever video made with ChatGPT and generative AI.

The retailer’s avatar answers a common question from its customers: “how to eat better and cheaper via its website”.

In a LInkedIn post, Elodie Perthuisot, Chief E Commerce, Digital Transformation and Data Officer & EXCOM member at Carrefour, said: “For us, artificial intelligence is very concrete: personalisation of purchases, optimisation of assortments, reduction of waste...we are exploring the different uses, at the service of our customers.”

“So, of course, our data and innovation teams are currently working on the use cases of ChatGPT, and generative AI in general. We explore them always keeping our customers as a compass and how to better serve them. To be continued…”

Check out the video here.