Friday, December 20, 2024

20 Dec 2024

Read time: 3-4 min
Read this article online

Hi, it’s Chad. Every Friday, I serve as your AI guide to help you navigate a rapidly evolving landscape, discern signals from noise and transform cutting-edge insights into practical leadership wisdom. Here’s what you need to know:

1. Algorithmic Musings: Reasoners

Remember when “artificial intelligence” meant beating humans at chess? Those were simpler times. Now we’re confronted with the concept of AI “reasoners” – a concept that’s lighting up tech discussions faster than a viral tweet.

But what exactly makes a “reasoner” tick? Let’s rewind the tape of human cognitive evolution for a moment. We’ve gone from gathering around fires sharing oral histories to having the sum of human knowledge in our pockets. Yet our fundamental ability to reason – to piece together logical puzzles, spot patterns, and make intellectual leaps – hasn’t changed much since our ancestors painted cave walls.

This brings us to the million-dollar question: What makes an AI a true ‘reasoner’? Think of it like this: just as having access to Wikipedia doesn’t make someone wise, having a massive dataset doesn’t make an AI system truly intelligent. A ‘reasoner’ represents a fundamental shift – it’s an AI system that can pull a ‘Good Will Hunting’ by solving complex problems through pure cognitive horsepower, no external tools or Google searches required. We’re talking about systems that can deduce, plan, and tackle multi-step problems with the sophistication of a seasoned professor.

But here’s where things get interesting (and a bit messy). Today’s AI companies each have their own take on what constitutes a “reasoner.” Some emphasize logical deduction, others focus on creative problem-solving, and still others prioritize common-sense reasoning.

The bottom line? While the tech world sorts out the details, there’s one crystal-clear benchmark: a true reasoner needs to solve complex problems independently, without reaching for external crutches. Full stop. It’s like the difference between memorizing answers and understanding the underlying principles – and in the AI world, that distinction makes all the difference.

The journey from narrow AI to true reasoning capabilities isn’t just another incremental step – it’s our generation’s equivalent of the graphical user interface revolution. Just as GUI transformed how humans interact with computers, reasoning capabilities will fundamentally reshape how machines process and understand our world. Only today, we’re watching the future unfold in real-time.

2. Paper Trail: AI Research Decoded

Enhancing Supply Chain Visibility with Generative AI

Picture this: supply chains so transparent they’d make a glass factory jealous. That’s what the latest research is promising with Gen AI at the helm. Here are the key takeaways:

  • Gen AI-enhanced prediction significantly outperforms traditional methods
  • Enables deeper understanding of supply chain relationships and contexts
  • Provides practical solutions for middle market organizations to improve visibility

QA-TOOLBOX: AI-Powered Task Guidance for Manufacturing Processes

Researchers have developed a secure AI system for manufacturing task guidance that protects proprietary information while achieving up to 76.2% accuracy in complex process assistance. Here are the highlights:

  • Successful implementation of AI task guidance in manufacturing requires balancing model performance with data security – larger models showed better performance but local deployment of smaller models offers better security
  • Question-answering system effectively handles three key areas: process execution (32% of queries), referents (56%), and task guidance (12%), providing comprehensive support for manufacturing operations
  • Two-stage search process maintains fast response times even with large document sets, demonstrating practical viability for real-world manufacturing environments

Read our full analysis of each of these research papers at AI for the C Suite

3. Sound Waves: Podcast Highlights

Catch up on all of our podcast episodes at any of the below links and stay tuned for a special episode the week of December 23rd. Subscribe for free today on your listening platform of choice to ensure you never miss a beat.

Apple | Spotify | iHeart

Amazon / Audible | YouTube

New episodes release every two weeks.

4. Digital Dojo

Remember when tech companies just dropped press releases? OpenAI’s “12 Days of Shipmas” feels more like Apple’s iconic “One More Thing” era – each day bringing another present to unwrap and they’ve promised that on “Day 12, we have something super special, so don’t miss it.” (btw, that’s today!!!) Might today’s release bring Chat GPT into the era of agentic AI? Until the unboxing, only Santa, his elves and the Open AI team know for sure. Pending the release, Check out the compilation 12 Days of Open AI or ZDNET’s excellent recap of all the new features to date.

5. AI Buzz: Fresh Bytes

Here are a few articles that caught my eye this week.

6. Elevate Your Leadership with AI for the C Suite

Subscribe today because your organization deserves the competitive edge that only cutting-edge AI insights can provide.

Don’t let your organization fall behind in the AI race. AI for the C Suite’s insights and tools are designed to keep you ahead of the curve.

Questions or need personalized guidance? Reply to this email – we’re here to help.

As we navigate this unprecedented fusion of human and machine intelligence, remember: the best leaders aren’t just adapting to change – they’re actively shaping it. Until next week, keep pushing boundaries.

Chad