Secret to AI Profitability Is Hiring a Lot More Doctorates
From spotting weeds in cotton fields to scanning the bush for signs of poachers, AI startups are recruiting scores of experts for highly specialized tasks.
Dozens of data experts perfect artificial intelligence models from offices in Thimphu TechPark, in Bhutan, in October.
Photographer: Saritha Rai/BloombergIn the tiny kingdom of Bhutan, dozens of data experts perfect artificial intelligence models from offices framed by majestic Himalayan peaks. The employees at iMerit aren’t there to train AI in rudimentary tasks like recognizing “brown cat on a windowsill” in an image. Instead, they’re teaching algorithms the anatomy of the human eye or how to detect changes in geospatial maps.
Backed by three Silicon Valley billionaires, iMerit is part of a growing cohort of companies building a more sophisticated, monetizable and reliable version of AI, an industry on track to add nearly $20 trillion to the global economy by 2030. As models become smarter, big business is increasingly looking to harness their power for highly specialized tasks, spawning dozens of data services startups devoted to customizing applications across sectors like finance, health care and defense.