by Angela Guess
Nick Beim recently opined in TechCrunch, “As revolutionary as machine learning will be, its impact will be highly asymmetric. While most machine learning algorithms, libraries and tools are in the public domain and computing power is a widely available commodity, data ownership is highly concentrated. This means that machine learning will likely have a barbell effect on the technology landscape. On one hand, it will democratize basic intelligence through the commoditization and diffusion of services such as image recognition and translation into software broadly. On the other, it will concentrate higher-order intelligence in the hands of a relatively small number of incumbents that control the lion’s share of their industry’s data.”
Beim continues, “For startups seeking to take advantage of the machine learning revolution, this barbell effect is a helpful lens to look for the biggest business opportunities. While there will be many new kinds of startups that machine learning will enable, the most promising will likely cluster around the incumbent end of the barbell. One of machine learning’s most lasting areas of impact will be to democratize basic intelligence through the commoditization of an increasingly sophisticated set of semantic and analytic services, most of which will be offered for free, enabling step-function changes in software capabilities. These services today include image recognition, translation and natural language processing and will ultimately include more advanced forms of interpretation and reasoning. Software will become smarter, more anticipatory and more personalized, and we will increasingly be able to access it through whatever interface we prefer – chat, voice, mobile application, web, or others yet to be developed. Beneficiaries will include technology developers and users of all kinds.”
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