Sorry, how can I imagine such a brainstorming session?
Subaiya: I’ll give you a personal example. I had a large amount of water to remove from a concrete pool, so the cleanup usually took a whole day. I started a conversation with an AI engine and told it my problem and asked how to make it easier?
The AI suggested installing a permanent pump and asked for details like the depth of the pool etc. We discussed different types of pumps and at some point the suction power came into play. I hadn’t even thought about it, but suddenly it wasn’t just how far the water had to be transported, but what suction power I needed to achieve this.
The AI suggested changing the piping to improve the suction capacity, but this increased the flow rate. The AI’s solution: add a tap at the other end to reduce the flow rate. So I worked out a solution with the AI. In the end, the AI warned me: “Be careful, the pump could implode due to too much suction.”
This led to the question of a pressure relief valve. The AI couldn’t recommend a ready-made valve, but showed me the blueprint of a pressure relief valve. I built this with a 3D printer and uploaded a photo to the AI so that it could check it. It was as if I had three or four different engineers at my side designing a solution with me.
Impressive, I’ll have to try that with one of my next problems. And what personal experience has shaped your view of AI the most?
Subaiya: I have two daughters who are eight and ten years old. My entire house is automated and can be voice-controlled via Alexa. If my children wanted to turn on the fan, they always had to say the exact command—”Turn on all the fans” or “Turn on the fan in the living room”. Alexa doesn’t understand context. This frustrated me and was the impetus for the idea that I could use an AI agent to personalize Alexa. The goal was for the technology to adapt to the children and not the other way around. Today, each of my daughters has their own AI agent, which knows which commands are meant through voice recognition via Alexa.
I have transferred this personal insight—that technology must adapt to the user—to the company. That’s why we want to create micro-agents that can be personalized for each individual person. That was the biggest personal AI learning for me, and it can be a real game changer for our company.
This article originally appeared in Computerwoche.
