AI in work and society – opportunities and challenges for the bus industry

If the predictions of Bilal Zafar, a tech entrepreneur from Baden-Württemberg, are anything to go by, AI will soon find its way into every area of life and business. As an example, Zafar pointed to the creation of deceptively real-looking pictures and film sequences. Giving another example, he noted programmes such as Chat GPT had the ability to appeal traffic tickets.

Bilal Zafar explained that the technology was currently experiencing a breakthrough due to the availability of data, computing power and ever-improving algorithms. The US in particular, followed by China, was far ahead in research and development. The entrepreneur was convinced that in ten years' time, using AI would provide a significant competitive advantage. He therefore advised companies to explore the benefits of AI systems for their business model and to demand corresponding investment from policymakers, because "we have to embrace change.“ It was important to establish a corresponding legal framework to enable the relevant technologies to be broadly used.

Communicating with the programmes, i.e. prompting, was very important, he said. If initial results were not convincing, then one had to make adjustments and give additional, more precise instructions. He gave an example of road traffic in Los Angeles, where buses were equipped with cameras that scanned the registration plates of vehicles parked in bus lanes and automatically issued tickets. Confusing road signs, for example abroad, could also be photographed and analysed by AI, along with the question: am I allowed to park here?

AI systems also benefit other areas, for example agriculture, where apples are already being picked by drones that know exactly when fruit is ripe. In medicine, Zafar was convinced that it would even help to cure cancer in the near future. On a personal level, the entrepreneur used AI to prepare appointments with his accountant, for example, or to adjust his appearance in video conferences to give the impression of always maintaining eye contact. He was convinced that the latest mobile phones would feature many of these functions as standard in the near future, if they were not doing so already.