I’m a trustee and patron at the Royal Institution which is the World’s oldest science charity (set up by Michael Faraday in 1799) and it is based near our Mayfair Chesterfield Hotel in Albemarle St in Piccadilly. The Ri run low-cost talks aimed at a non-techy audience and often get great speakers in who explain complex subjects very clearly. More here if anyone is interested: https://www.rigb.org/ It’s a good venue to promote to London guests too, especially anyone who has a tech or science interest. The Ri also cover softer subjects like ethics and human psychology eg a recent talk was about creating teams who could best meet the strenuous physical and mental challenges of a 9 month trip to Mars.
Prof Chris Bishop who heads up Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Microsoft’s Cambridge Labs is a regular presenter. The Ri captures all of the talks on their YouTube channel and this one by Chris as an introduction to AI is well worth a watch.
There are many buzzwords in this area including Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Intelligence, Machine Learning, Neural Nets etc, but Chris explains them all very well. Basically, AI is the broad subject of machines doing tasks that we would consider smart. Machine Learning is a subset of AI and is where we give machines some clever algorithms (rules) and lot of data and let them spot patterns and deduce findings for themselves. A Neural Net is a computer system designed to work by classifying information in the same way a human brain does. They work on probability and feedback, and a lot of trial and error. Augmented Intelligence is man and machine working in concert eg a surgeon might use AI to review thousands of cat scans but use his/her personal experience to decide next steps on any exceptional cases.
Where is AI in hospitality? Currently, a lot of work is happening in Revenue Management to optimise pricing in ways that humans couldn’t begin to do manually. Some general hospitality examples: https://www.revfine.com/artificial-intelligence-hospitality-industry/
Also, AI is behind the various chatbots that are appearing eg The Radisson’s Edward agent: https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetwburns/2016/05/10/radisson-blu-hotel-guests-can-now-text-edward-the-chatbot-for-service/#5b208401e23c
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