Forward Conference 2023

Artificial Intelligence Accelerates Business and Makes Processes More Efficient!

At the fifth "Forward" conference, organized by the Innovation Center Banja Luka (ICBL), the topic was Artificial Intelligence in Business – the latest trends, innovations, and opportunities in the world. The conference was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology Development and Higher Education of the Republic of Srpska (RS), along with the project "Innovation and Digitalization of Small and Medium Enterprises in BiH/EU4DigitalSME," co-financed by the European Union and the Federal Republic of Germany, and implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

"Artificial Intelligence can be a driver of economic development, as well as society as a whole, as it is an integral part of every area of social activity, whether in the economy, entrepreneurship, information technology, medicine, education, and other fields," stated Jelena Starčević, Assistant Minister for Higher Education of the Republic of Srpska.

As the organizers mentioned, this year’s conference slogan is "Artificial Intelligence is Here and Not Going Anywhere." ICBL Director Drago Gverić said that the aim of the conference is to demonstrate how artificial intelligence can become a partner in development: "Ethics and safety are at the core, and today we will see how it impacts business, education, art, and even social norms."

https://eu4digitalsme.ba/novosti/forward-konferencija-umjetna-inteligencija-ubrzava-poslove-i-cini-procese-efikasnijima/

In her opening remarks, Eva Naeher, Program Director at GIZ, stated: "GIZ has supported the Forward conference from the very beginning. We can say that this year's conference is a key event in mobilizing the ecosystem and bringing important stakeholders, experts, businesses, and interested parties to the same table. Our project focuses on innovation and digitalization in companies and facilitates their transition to the future – in this sense, the topic of artificial intelligence is definitely one that businesses should address and use to support achieving better business results."

Renowned experts from the region and BiH discussed various topics related to current developments and predictions of future trends and consequences brought by the advancement of artificial intelligence. It was emphasized that artificial intelligence does not possess its own intelligence but imitates humans using the data and information it is fed. It does not understand but merely simulates human behavior, hence it is called artificial "intelligence." Creating a language model like the well-known Chat GPT requires a vast amount of information to be input into the model, which demands significant time and resources, as well as substantial technological investments. Currently, this is only available to very large companies. However, smaller companies are eager to develop their own artificial intelligence models that will offer the market more accurate, deeper, and faster responses than general models like Chat GPT, and be more cost-effective in terms of "production" investment.

Companies and individuals are currently more users of artificial intelligence systems, and it is essential to understand their limitations and capabilities. Companies should first consider how to utilize artificial intelligence and integrate it into their business models. As highlighted, artificial intelligence can also bring new business models to companies that they had not previously considered.

Experts pointed out that artificial intelligence can accelerate tasks and make processes more efficient, can serve as a good assistant, but cannot run businesses or replace human knowledge, experience, and vision. Artificial intelligence excels in text combination, providing an endless number of suggestions and ideas, and in this sense, significantly aids certain professions and occupations. In the future, smaller teams in companies, with the help of artificial intelligence, will be able to accomplish more than larger teams do today.

Some conference participants expressed concerns about potential abuses of artificial intelligence and the dangers it currently poses, such as ethical issues and data privacy, which may be used or even transferred to third parties under certain circumstances. This is especially crucial for companies in terms of protecting trade secrets.

The Forward conference (https://forwardconf.org) continued on the second day with a series of individual workshops discussing specific types of artificial intelligence applications in business environments, including marketing, sales, analytics and data processing, content creation, and more.

Source: https://eu4digitalsme.ba/