A $60 billion industry has fundamentally transformed how it operates through the application of technology. What we’ve witnessed here over the past two years is nothing short of remarkable. The artwork hangs in Christie’s virtual gallery in Genesis City, the capital of Decentraland – a virtual world. Inevitably, the transaction was completed using cryptocurrency – in this case, Ether. An NFT is a unit of data stored on a digital ledger, verified by blockchain, that certifies a digital asset to be unique and therefore not interchangeable. Everydays: The First 5,000 Days, is a unique work in the history of digital art, incorporating a non-fungible token (NFT) as a guarantee of its authenticity. In March, Christie’s sold the world’s first purely digital artwork for an eye-watering $69,346,250. It sold for over $430,000, far exceeding its expected sale price of $7,000.įast-forward two years. Created by a French art collective called Obvious, the portrait of Edmond de Belamy used a process known as generative adversarial network, or GAN, which used two algorithms working together to analyse a vast database of old master paintings. The first signs of this revolution emerged in 2018 when Christie’s New York sold its first ever AI-generated artwork. It’s even changing the way pieces of art are being created, with new art forms emerging. Perhaps accelerated by the pandemic – digital technology is changing the way art is bought, sold, and viewed. Meanwhile, it defines ‘art’ as “A practical pursuit or trade of a skilled nature, a craft an activity that can be achieved or mastered by the application of specialist skills (also) any one of the useful arts.” There seems little reason AI and machine learning can’t master ‘art’ under this latter definition. The Oxford English Dictionary offers a circular definition of ‘creative’ as “Having the quality of creating, able to create of or relating to creation.” It is this creativity and individuality that sets them apart. We think of art as being uniquely human – that works of art are fundamentally based on the inimitable creative instinct of the artists themselves. Can AI deliver creativity?īut what of the remaining 10% which relies on the commander’s natural instinct and creativity? Could AI have a role to play here, too?

If Lawrence’s maxim is true, the application of AI should lead to perhaps 90% of the decision-making process becoming automated with no direct human involvement at the time of the decision. It should be linked to the data, with explicit premises and assumptions, and formulated in a way that allows information to be gathered to confirm or falsify this underpinning logic.

Lawrence once wrote: “Nine-tenths of tactics are certain and taught in books: but the irrational tenth is like the kingfisher flashing across the pool, and that is the test of generals.”Ĭonsequently, 90% of a commander’s decision ought to be explicitly evidence-based. So as the technology evolves and develops further, we will increasingly see the adoption of more and more machine learning to take such decisions, with increased rigour. This enables critical decisions to be taken in a nanosecond that can destroy an adversary without any human involvement. The military internet of things is connecting all aspects of the battlespace, and information can be shared instantaneously. Like our everyday lives, the modern day battlefield is evolving. But so too can the benefits to Defence, where the difference between good and bad and fast and slow decisions can be a matter of life and death. The financial benefits and gains for commercial businesses can be huge. Using AI capability to analyse vast volumes of data enables decisions to be taken much faster, and with more assurance than previously. On the global financial markets, a split-second can be the difference between millions of dollars, profit or loss. The result is that critical decisions can be taken that are evidence-based, backed by data delivering much higher levels of rigour than previously possible.

With this data explosion, AI is increasingly outperforming humans in its ability to analyse a much greater volume of information at unprecedented speeds and fidelity, that are simply unattainable by a human. The roles humans will play in taking these decisions is also evolving, as the volume of data available for analysis increases exponentially. And this is having a profound impact on decision making in all walks of life, including Defence. AI, automated techniques and machine learning are increasingly being adopted as part of this revolution. Digital technology continues to reshape every aspect of our lives.

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