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Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-58721708

I have found out a very interesting article reflecting one of the numerous application of virtual reality, and technology as a whole, to improve the way we do things and bring value to our lives.

Perhaps we have all heard of VR games, and maybe many have tried playing such. On the other hand, the use of VR in construction is another technological disruption you might have heard of. Yet, I was surprised to see something different this time – how we can use VR in education. 

The articles shares that Bangor University, UK, is one of the first universities in the alongside with Harvar to start using VR technology to train radiographers how to use x-ray machines and correctly analyze the findings. The system uses gaming-style 3D graphics along with virtual patients to help students learn quickly and reduce the shortage of operators. Most importantly, by using this new way of learning, nobody will be exposed to radiation that comes with regularly doing the procedure. Furthemore, learning the correct technique is the most challenging part of taking the x-ray scans (meaning that students would require a lot of practice, causing a lot of radiation and potential harm). Hence, the impact of this tool on education is huge. Last but not least, the system recreates an X-ray suite, which usually costs about £250,000 compared to the cost of the software  £15,000, indicating also substantial financial benefit for educational institutions to switch to ‘new’ means of teaching.

This shows that even technologies which have been known for quite some time and actually have been invented a few decades ago (the first virtual reality headset was created in 1968 by American computer scientist Ivan Sutherland and his student, Bob Sproull), have still not reached their full potential as proven by the example above. Hence, I would be curious to see what the next application of VR could be and how that would change the world we live in. Maybe you already have some ideas? I would be happy to hear about them below. 

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Source: https://hbr.org/2021/09/ai-can-help-address-inequity-if-companies-earn-users-trust

The recent article of Harvard Business Review by Shunyuan Zhang, Kannan Srinivasan, Param Vir Singh, and Nitin Mehta highlights the challenges and opportunities that AI could offer to humanity. Similarly to what we discussed during the lecture, the authors emphasize on the numerous benefits that could be gained thanks to AI such as autonomous vehicles and automation within advertising decision, while at the same time pointing out some of the biggest challenges – such as the algorithmic bias. 

However, the article builds a case for another crucial aspect in the success of AI, that reflects the challenge of rate of adaptability across diverse groups of people which should not be overlooked. The main argument in the paper is that the market conditions under which new algorithms are used should be carefully considered as this could determine the impact of the innovation as well as the benefits for the users.  

The example of Airbnb launching AI algorithm-based smart pricing tool, used to automatically adjust listing’s daily price has shown exactly the importance of this process. Airbnb created an algorithm meant to help with determining the best price for property by analyzing a lot of information, and recently an increase of revenue by 8.6% of the hosts that adopted the algorithm was reported. Despite the results and the fact that the algorithm was perfectly race bling, the gap between balck and white hosts increased. The only reason for this was that black hosts were significantly less likely to adopt the algorithm in comparison to the while hosts. 

Ultimately, this story shreds light on the importance of internalizing market conditions during algorithm deployment, meaning that differences in the adoption of AI algorithms across racial groups should be done by addressing the users concerns initially, to guarantee success and use by the targeted users. 

Despite promising value to customers (bringing improved decision making) Airbnb’s algorithm ended up being unsuccessful. This sadly is not the only such story (e.g. reluctance in healthcare provided by AI, and Uniqueness neglect – Longoni, Chiara, Banezzi, 2019). Therefore, companies moving forward should focus on the key attributes to making AI beneficial – accountability, responsibility and transparency. The companies should consider how an algorithm could be perceived by targeted users and focus on building trust and helping users to understand what is the purpose of an algorithm and the way it works. 

And how would you feel about using such an algorithm as a host in a platform such as Airbnb?