The introduction of robot workers powered by artificial intelligence (AI) has taken a significant step forward today with the unveiling of an advanced new platform aimed at streamlining everyday business tasks.
Named Amelia after famous American pilot Amelia Earheart, the platform has been developed by US firm IPSoft, and aims not to mimic the human brain, but to use highly-developed machine learning to understand context and interact like a human would.
Using a combination of knowledge and understanding technologies, Amelia can quickly learn and process new information faster than any existing AI platform, allowing it to master new tasks in a short amount of time.
The technology can be quickly deployed from the cloud, with IPSoft hoping that the technology can soon be used to automate a variety of laborious or boring work functions typically carried out by humans, such as working on technology help desks or processing financial transactions.
Able to speak in over 20 languages, the company is also hoping to expand Amelia to help with further positions, as it learns not just from reading existing manuals and situational context but also by observing and working with human colleagues.
By identifying and discerning for itself a map of the business processes being followed, Amelia is able to provide valuable, smart recommendations and solutions to both human co-workers and customers.
For example, working on a help desk, Amelia can understand what a caller is looking for, ask questions to clarify the issue, find and access needed information and determine which steps to follow in order to solve the problem.
“Amelia will allow people to indulge in more creative forms of expression, as opposed to doing routine business process tasks,” said Chetan Dube, chief executive officer at IPsoft. “This platform will free us from the mundane, disrupting industries in the way that machines have previously transformed manufacturing and agriculture. We’re going to have to rethink work by redefining existing roles and identifying new ones.”
IPSoft says it has been working on the technology behind Amelia for 15 years, as the world gradually adapts to having AI processes as a part of everyday life, and is trialling it with a number of Fortune 1000 companies.
Gartner predicts that by 2017, managed services offerings leveraging autonomics and cognitive platforms like Amelia will drive a 60 percent reduction in the cost of services.
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What are the people you have freed from the "mundane" tasks going to do for a living?
We seem to be ever faster moving to a society run by machines to free humans to do exactly what they want while at the same time accumulating the worlds wealth within a very narrow band.
Soon these dehumanised call centres will have little to do beyond processing the welfare requests of a "freed" population of humans.