Artificial intelligence is the technology behind facial recognition for unlocking your phone, the personalization of social media and much more. As it becomes more prevalent, Hawaiʻi businesses have started to consider the usefulness, or harmfulness, of AI.
Ian Kitajima, the president of the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research, has more than 30 years of experience in the innovation and development of advanced technologies.
"It's actually all around us. Maybe you don't see it, but it's already there. But I think what has happened more recently in the last few months is because of the large language models, like ChatGPT, all of a sudden the everyday person came in direct contact to it," he said. "All of a sudden, it seems very human-like, and I think that's what's exciting and what's also scaring people."
In the business world, he said employees and companies will be set apart by who knows how to use artificial intelligence and who does not.
One of the simplest things you can use AI for is summarizing long meetings and documents. Kitajima stressed the importance of understanding the tools and when you should use them.
"Of course, whenever you're talking about something so new like this, it's very easy to focus on all of the scary things. That's just natural... But I think the things that are scary are all going to get fixed."
"For all the things you think are going to be scary and going to be an issue, know that those are also opportunities to create the next generation of companies here in Hawaiʻi," Kitajima told The Conversation.
Kitajima is featured at a Hawaii Society of Business Professionals luncheon at 11:30 a.m. Thursday at the Prince Waikiki.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Sept. 20, 2023. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
