State of AI & FinTech in Asia

MIT Technology Review has released a fascinating report on AI in Asia that is worth a read.

Banks see AI as destructive 

According to the Report, the financial services industry in Asia is pessimistic about the future of AI, while all other industries see AI as a positive influence. The financial services sector felt that automation would destroy value.

Industries in Asia, except banking, believe that AI will significantly boost competitiveness for Asia as a manufacturing and service center, benefit government policy to boost innovation, and increase overall industry growth.

The Report noted that AI has the potential to improve global challenges from food security, public safety, infrastructure and health care.

“We need deep neutral networks for AI to manage big data.”

The changes that will drive AI implementation, experts agree, will be the harnessing of mobile data and big data and the borrowing and sharing of automated processes for insight across sectors (so between cities, banks, infrastructure and healthcare) to increase business performance. What is needed is deep neutral networks to manage scale and capacity of data.

FinTech hubs racing to AI

The Report noted that Hong Kong and Singapore are racing to be leading FinTech hubs and see seeding investment in AI as essential. Japan and Korea are injecting AI in massive volumes of consumer goods. Singapore has an unfocused approach and is into “a little bit of everything” contrasted with China that is building a domestic manufacturing capability in industrial robots and AI.

Loss of jobs

In Asia, governments believe that AI will transform the labour force at a much faster pace than elsewhere because of the higher percentage of low-skilled jobs in their labour force.

Exports in the Report note that not all jobs will be obsolete –  robots are not infallible and even the best robotic financial analyst can only prepare a report at 70% of the capability of a human.