Generative artificial intelligence, often associated with hype and excitement, is starting to deliver on its promise. It’s not just the buzzword of the tech world but a powerful tool with real-world applications.

More specifically, the technology is dramatically changing the human approach to sourcing, aggregating and applying creativity to information — whether in education, enterprises or even Hollywood scriptwriting,

“The thing that guides my thinking is generative AI makes knowledge generally more available to people,” said Vince Kellen (pictured), chief information officer at the University of California, San Diego. “It actually levels up the more novice learner, the learner who’s newer and brings them up faster. That’s the big impact for gen AI — and I just follow that thread across any dimension of a business or, in our case, universities and students.”

Kellen spoke with theCUBE industry analyst John Furrier at Supercloud 4, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the dynamic landscape of generative AI, highlighting the technological advancements and potential use cases that are reshaping industries.

The evolution of AI and education

Certain parallels exist between the emergence of generative AI and the advent of the World Wide Web. Much like the internet disrupted traditional business models and paved the way for the digital era, AI is now changing how we consume content and interact with technology.

“I believe that many, maybe even most of what we know as our user interfaces today are going to change to more of a conversational style, natural language style of interfaces,” Kellen explained. “The metaphor I use is Ironman asking Jarvis a question. It’s causing us to lean into what we call conversational analytics, rather than fire up a business intelligence tool and start to finger-click away.”

These interfaces, driven by natural language processing, are poised to replace conventional user interfaces. With the shift in interaction styles, users can simply ask questions and receive instant responses.

The future of a knowledge-based world

It’s already amazing the information that gen AI can make available in an instant. However, with increasing cases of inaccuracies due to stale, outdated content, it’s become crucial to keep content relevant and up-to-date in today’s dynamic, knowledge-based world, according to Kellen.

This finding is referenced in Kellen’s recent essay, “The Future of Education,” where there’s a stressed need for institutions to adopt systems that ensure students access the right content at the right time, given the speed at which information becomes outdated.

“That’s going to lead to what I call, ‘Walled gardens of data,’ and trying to protect the privacy of that data both from an in IP standpoint and corporate-strategy standpoint,” Kellen said. “This is going to stand to stark contrast to some of the big players such as OpenAI, Google and Microsoft that really need access to lots of content across the web.”

While there’s no imminent collapse of the education system, it underscores the importance of rethinking traditional learning management systems and content delivery methods.

The human-AI augmentation

The fear that AI will replace humans is unwarranted, according to Kellen. Instead, it will augment, not replace, human roles by automating mundane and repetitive tasks, freeing up human workers to focus on more creative and meaningful aspects of their jobs.

“Yes, there’ll be some job displacement, but I think you’re going to see much more of an augmentation effect, probably two-thirds to three-quarters augmentation effect rather than a replacement effect to almost any job you can shake a stick at,” he explained. “The message we give is, ‘you’re not going to be replaced by AI but may be replaced by somebody who can use AI.'”

This human-AI collaboration will open up new avenues for creativity and innovation. It will also mark a fundamental shift toward systems thinking as AI becomes more integrated into various aspects of business and life. Therefore, complex systems and probabilistic thinking will become essential skills, according to Kellen.

“First of all, gen AI is a bit of a complex system in terms of how it works under the hood and the probabilistic sort of framework you got to throw over your operations of AI now is very different,” he noted. “Like you said, ‘This is not your father’s data center anymore. This is a whole new thing.’ And so, yes, you need broader, holistic system thinking, complex system thinking and probabilistic system thinking skills [in the] business and technical layers inside your organization.”

While the AI-led future is undoubtedly bright, there’s also the need to curtail certain concerns about the misuse of something so powerful, yet so readily available. One of those concerns is disinformation, which is as destructive as it is pervasive, Kellen noted.

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Supercloud 4:

Photo: SiliconANGLE