How Business Leaders See Our AI Future

Danish thought and business leaders on how AI will rule the next ten years

Author

Peter Juel Jensen
October 03, 2023

Peter’s Pioneers: Checking the Nordic AI Pulse.
Welcome to the fourth edition of Peter’s AI Pioneers newsletter. Dive in for a roundup of this week's AI news, deals and insights covering the Nordic region.

📚 In This Issue:

  1. How Business Leaders See Our AI Future

  2. How Spotify Is and Isn’t Embracing AI

  3. Why Horse Data Lies at the Heart of Danish AI Chatbot

  4. News Roundup

  5. Cool Tools and Companies

  6. Podcast Insights: The EU view on AI, AI and the Climate

  7. Upcoming: Nordic AI Events You Shouldn't Miss

Top Three News Stories

🔎 How Business Leaders See Our AI Future 

In a LinkedIn article, Jonathan Løw, business author and speaker, shares how leading business professionals in Denmark see the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).

They seek to answer the question, “How will AI change society and business between now and 2033?”

The answers illustrate the disruptive potential of AI, especially in combination with other technologies. For example, Anja Bisgaard Gaede predicts that AI will merge with quantum computing to significantly impact health and climate sectors, emphasizing that creative processes will accelerate, possibly leading to a reformed labour market.

In business settings, we could face a complete rewrite of how we interact with clients and companies. Peter Svarre envisions the dominance of personal chatbots, replacing the need for websites, search engines, and even certain job roles, hinting at the birth of "robot wipers" who ensure companies remain favourable to advanced chatbots.

A shared sentiment among the professionals is the transformative nature of AI on communication; Anne Lise Kjaer and Louise Loecke Foverskov stress that tomorrow's 'superpower' will be language rooted in authenticity and empathy. They also highlight the potential threat AI poses to smaller languages and the importance of preserving cultural diversity.

My take: The future landscape painted by Denmark's thought leaders underscores the staggering impact and breadth of AI's influence. AI's integration with quantum computing can revolutionize sectors like health and climate, while personal chatbots could replace conventional digital gateways like websites.

It is a transformative shift in how we access and share information where AI, language, and business culture will be tightly intertwined.

The profound changes created by AI offer a wealth of opportunities. Business prospects look good not just for companies pioneering AI solutions, but also for those providing intermediary services. For example, as AI tools become more integrated into daily operations, the demand for training and integration services will soar.

The rapid pace of advancements necessitates an ever-evolving understanding of the technology. Staying updated on AI's capabilities will be imperative, and companies positioned to bridge the knowledge and application gap will find themselves at the forefront of this technological renaissance.

🎵 How Spotify Is and Isn’t Embracing AI

Spotify and AI have been mentioned in the same breath a couple of times recently. The latest story was the company’s CEO saying that it has no plans to outlaw content created by artificial intelligence. In a rare media appearance on the BBC, Daniel Ek said there were valid uses of the tech in making music - but AI should not be used to impersonate human artists without their consent.

Discussing the dilemma this poses to the industry, he said, "It's going to be complicated."

Although the platform doesn't outright ban AI, it prohibits using its content to train machine learning or AI models capable of creating music.

Spotify also recently announced a move to include AI voice translations of podcasts into other languages. Voice Translation for podcasts, as the tool is called, uses AI to translate podcasts into additional languages—all in the original podcaster’s voice.

My take: The debate over AI-generated content is just getting started, and Spotify provides a textbook example of the opportunities and challenges this leads to for companies and creators.

On one hand, AI can help you extend offerings and the reach of content. On the other hand, AI can reshuffle and remix existing content - and create new things based on it - at a speed and price pointthat can be directly harmful to companies’ and individuals’ business model - especially those who invest money and time in creating original content.

🐎 Why Horse Data Lies at the Heart of Danish AI Chatbot

On the surface, this story sounds crazy: data from the Danish web forum Hestenet (directly translates into Horse-net) is central to developing ChatGPT-like generative AI systems in Denmark.

What happened is that data from Hestenet (yes, it’s about all things horse-related) is part of a new Danish text corpus called Danish Gigaword. This data set serves as a foundation to build artificial intelligence language models in Danish, similar to the ones that drive well-known solutions like ChatGPT.

Gigaword sources material from various platforms, including Heste-net, the Folketing (the Danish Parliament), Wikipedia articles, and news pieces, among others.

A significant insight during the development was the realization that language models can benefit from texts that capture the essence and nuances of everyday Danish conversations. To address this gap, Heste-net was a crucial addition to the dataset. As highlighted by researcher Leon Derczynski, Heste-net offers a rich tapestry of perspectives and spontaneous writing styles, making it linguistically invaluable.

My take: Generative AI, including ChatGPT, relies on masses of data. The amount of English language data available on the internet contributes to ChatGPT’s strength in that language.

National and regional datasets will be vital for developing tools and Large Languale Models in other languages.

With this in mind, using data from Hestenet makes a lot of sense, and we can likely expect news on other, similar Nordic endeavours. One interesting aspect is the legal frameworks around the data - in other words, what consent data collectors need to collect data from forums and websites. 

🎙Nordic News Roundup

  • Novo Nordisk will use AI to find new treatments for lifestyle diseases. (Novo Nordisk)

  • Is Norway ill-prepared for AI in healthcare? [NO] (NRK)

  • Finnish M-Files launches new AI platform. [NO] (Computer World)

  • The EU and Denmark are lagging behind on AI investment [DK] (Dansk Erhverv)

🛠️ Cool Tools & Companies

  • Aquabyte from Norway uses advanced camera technology and AI to assess the health, welfare and growth of salmon.

  • Digip from Sweden has created an advanced trademark platform and AI-powered analytics for trademark registration and protection.

  • BeCause from Denmark offers an AI-powered sustainability hub that simplifies, speeds up, and reduces costs for sustainability management in the tourism industry.

Do you know cool tools or companies I should feature in the newsletter? Let me know!

🎧 Listen To

  • Prompt [DK] - EU “Tech-Tsar” Margrethe Vestager explains the EU’s AI legislation.

  • Evo Nordics [UK] - Industry leaders discuss the intersection of data, artificial intelligence, and people leadership.

  • Teknologi og Mennesker [NO] - What effect will artificial intelligence have on sustainability and climate initiatives.

📅 Training, Meetups & Conferences

Got an AI story or insight from the Nordics? Share it with me!

Reply to this email or connect on LinkedIn.

Until next time,

Peter