On the list of the 30 most influential women executives in the world, published each year by the Insights Success magazine, is to be found the Catalan, Carme Artigas. She is the founder and CEO of Synergic Partner, a company set up in 2006 that is devoted to the development of Big Data, and which passed into Telefónica's hands a little over a year ago when the telecommunications company decided to start managing mass data. Artigas is also the ambassador for the congress, Women in Data Science (WiDS), from Stanford University, which was held on Friday in Madrid. It is a meeting that aims to inspire and educate women in the sphere of data science.
In a matter of 10 years, Artigas has gone from being a sort of visionary arguing for emerging technology to being considered a heavyweight in the technology market and the application of Big Data in companies. And this Catalan, a chemistry graduate from the Institut Químic in Sarrià, is one of the industry's main players. She works directly with new technical advances, manages them and knows that as society becomes aware of the importance of data, a change will be required that is already silently underway: the widespread use of artificial intelligence and robotics.
Are we still at an initial stage or is artificial intelligence becoming consolidated?
It is blossoming, at a very high level of maturity. The concept is already quite old, it appeared in the 1950s and was initially associated with viewing systems for computing. The first leap forward came in the 1980s with machine learning, due to the advances in processing data that began to be applied to predictive models, but it was in 2000 with Deep Learning that the turning point came. Now computers learn by themselves and we are seeing an exponential change thanks to the processing of Big Data, and we also have image, voice and text recognition systems that can be even more powerful than humans. There are areas in which possibly, without knowing it, artificial intelligence is beginning to be applied. A basic example is junk email, behind which is an algorithm, but we also find it in more sophisticated sectors, such as industry and medicine.
Which sector is making the quickest progress, consumption or industry?
Consumption was the first to develop prediction because it has the great advantage of being able to apply it to personalisation, to better understand users and detect patterns of behaviour and make recommendations. Industry is adopting it in combination with robotics and automation, but with a difference: it is generic artificial intelligence, you don't teach it to do something, rather it has a general capacity to think like a human. And this is the challenge for society. The day that there are machines that are more intelligent than people, we will have arrived at the point of singularity. On that day, it will be the last invention we will have to make as humans, after that machines will do it because they will be more intelligent.
When will we get there?
The experts say that the point of singularity will come around 2040 or 2050, but we have to start acting now. We know that 60% of the children born today will have jobs linked to artificial intelligence. The challenge is to balance the benefits and the drawbacks for all social levels and the intermediate generations that were not born in a roboticised world. People will have to be more more capable than machines when it comes to making decisions and applying criteria. We will have an excess of information and the role of the human being will be focused on critical thinking, on motivating human teams and the development of social skills, and less on technology and technical growth.
In general, is there a fear of technological advances, will they have to be assimilated?
As the scientist José Luis Cordeiro said, "we should not fear artificial intelligence, but rather human stupidity." Great dramas never originate with computers, the problems come from people. We who are monitoring the advances know what the risks and opportunities are, and we have to able to manage them. I am not saying there is no fear; I don't doubt it was frightening seeing a steam engine or a train for the first time. All technology creates fear out of unfamiliarity, what we have to do is to be aware.
Do large companies invest in all of this technical development or use talent from startups driving the change?
Both things are happening. Small companies are always the first ones to seize the opportunities of technological innovation because they do not have inherited systems or slow, heavy organisation that slow down adopting changes. When large companies become aware of the transformation, they begin to make internal changes and often acquire talent from outside to speed up the process.
You are an example of this process.
In our case, Telefónica had begun its Big Data project a couple of years previously and we saw an opportunity to speed up the technological development. We have to understand that for all the advances in technology, organisations do not grow so quickly. There is always a time lag between the opportunity offered by technology and the company's capacity to adopt it. The larger and more complex they are, this bigger this gap becomes and it is even harder to make the cultural change. Small companies are quicker, but they lack the dimensions needed when it comes to making substantial change.
The United States, especially Google, has always been at the forefront of artificial intelligence. Does Europe lack potential?
No, in industry 4.0 the first ones to apply the strategy were European companies. Germany and other countries with an industrial base were the leaders, the ones who focused on industry before other sectors. The United States is always ahead because there are more funding support mechanisms for companies and those for scaled growth. The capacity to create unicorns only exists in the United States. Europe is still some way off, but we do not lack knowledge and in opting for industry 4.0 we are ahead.
Some experts say that the Fortune 500 list in 10 years will be totally different. Will we see leaders like Google, Apple and Microsoft on it, or will they too have disappeared?
They will surely be there because they are very big, but in 10 years' time we will see new companies. They will not be the traditional firms; they will not have 45 years of history, but rather five. And perhaps they will not be based on physical assets, but rather on another type of digital asset. Probably 40% of today's most important companies will have disappeared.
Will it mostly be tech companies at the top?
We currently understand technology as a vertical, when technology will become a horizontal; it will be an intrinsic part of all sectors. They will not be tech companies as we understand them today, they will be what we know as software companies, working with data and they will come from any sector. All companies will be organisations, this is the great paradigm shift, we have to stop thinking that the focus is on software, apps or hardware; the focus is on data, which means artificial intelligence and knowledge, and that can be taken and processed in any sector.
Will technology, companies, employees change? Also the role of management?
It will change a lot. If we look at the time an executive invests, we will see that 40% is devoted to monitoring and follow-up, 20% to innovation and strategy, and the rest to developing teams. If 40% of the work is to be automated, there will be a need for more investment in innovation and strategy. The executive of the future will have to develop skills related to data comparison, understanding knowledge, mastering new technology and developing teams. There is already an American law office that has a robolawyer, so there will be a need to understand managing mixed teams and new work processes. It is still all to be seen, but it is clear that the traditional executive and company has to change.
Among the changes, will there also be more women heading tech companies?
No doubt. There is a long way to go, but we are making good progress. Nearly 30% of students doing technical degrees are now women and in our company 40% of us are women. Traditionally, there have been very few women in the sector, but we need to take into account that in Spain it is hard to innovate because adequate mechanisms do not exist for tech companies to grow and allow for more women. At the board level there is still a big gap, but it has got better. Men also want balance between the professional and personal worlds because nor can they find a balance, as they spend all day working and do not see their children. I have often been asked how I do it and I always say that it is as difficult to find the balance as it is for a man. The day that there is no recognition like the Insights Success list of influential women, it will be because we have overcome this.
In a matter of 10 years, Artigas has gone from being a sort of visionary arguing for emerging technology to being considered a heavyweight in the technology market and the application of Big Data in companies. And this Catalan, a chemistry graduate from the Institut Químic in Sarrià, is one of the industry's main players. She works directly with new technical advances, manages them and knows that as society becomes aware of the importance of data, a change will be required that is already silently underway: the widespread use of artificial intelligence and robotics.
Are we still at an initial stage or is artificial intelligence becoming consolidated?
It is blossoming, at a very high level of maturity. The concept is already quite old, it appeared in the 1950s and was initially associated with viewing systems for computing. The first leap forward came in the 1980s with machine learning, due to the advances in processing data that began to be applied to predictive models, but it was in 2000 with Deep Learning that the turning point came. Now computers learn by themselves and we are seeing an exponential change thanks to the processing of Big Data, and we also have image, voice and text recognition systems that can be even more powerful than humans. There are areas in which possibly, without knowing it, artificial intelligence is beginning to be applied. A basic example is junk email, behind which is an algorithm, but we also find it in more sophisticated sectors, such as industry and medicine.
Which sector is making the quickest progress, consumption or industry?
Consumption was the first to develop prediction because it has the great advantage of being able to apply it to personalisation, to better understand users and detect patterns of behaviour and make recommendations. Industry is adopting it in combination with robotics and automation, but with a difference: it is generic artificial intelligence, you don't teach it to do something, rather it has a general capacity to think like a human. And this is the challenge for society. The day that there are machines that are more intelligent than people, we will have arrived at the point of singularity. On that day, it will be the last invention we will have to make as humans, after that machines will do it because they will be more intelligent.
When will we get there?
The experts say that the point of singularity will come around 2040 or 2050, but we have to start acting now. We know that 60% of the children born today will have jobs linked to artificial intelligence. The challenge is to balance the benefits and the drawbacks for all social levels and the intermediate generations that were not born in a roboticised world. People will have to be more more capable than machines when it comes to making decisions and applying criteria. We will have an excess of information and the role of the human being will be focused on critical thinking, on motivating human teams and the development of social skills, and less on technology and technical growth.
In general, is there a fear of technological advances, will they have to be assimilated?
As the scientist José Luis Cordeiro said, "we should not fear artificial intelligence, but rather human stupidity." Great dramas never originate with computers, the problems come from people. We who are monitoring the advances know what the risks and opportunities are, and we have to able to manage them. I am not saying there is no fear; I don't doubt it was frightening seeing a steam engine or a train for the first time. All technology creates fear out of unfamiliarity, what we have to do is to be aware.
Do large companies invest in all of this technical development or use talent from startups driving the change?
Both things are happening. Small companies are always the first ones to seize the opportunities of technological innovation because they do not have inherited systems or slow, heavy organisation that slow down adopting changes. When large companies become aware of the transformation, they begin to make internal changes and often acquire talent from outside to speed up the process.
You are an example of this process.
In our case, Telefónica had begun its Big Data project a couple of years previously and we saw an opportunity to speed up the technological development. We have to understand that for all the advances in technology, organisations do not grow so quickly. There is always a time lag between the opportunity offered by technology and the company's capacity to adopt it. The larger and more complex they are, this bigger this gap becomes and it is even harder to make the cultural change. Small companies are quicker, but they lack the dimensions needed when it comes to making substantial change.
The United States, especially Google, has always been at the forefront of artificial intelligence. Does Europe lack potential?
No, in industry 4.0 the first ones to apply the strategy were European companies. Germany and other countries with an industrial base were the leaders, the ones who focused on industry before other sectors. The United States is always ahead because there are more funding support mechanisms for companies and those for scaled growth. The capacity to create unicorns only exists in the United States. Europe is still some way off, but we do not lack knowledge and in opting for industry 4.0 we are ahead.
Some experts say that the Fortune 500 list in 10 years will be totally different. Will we see leaders like Google, Apple and Microsoft on it, or will they too have disappeared?
They will surely be there because they are very big, but in 10 years' time we will see new companies. They will not be the traditional firms; they will not have 45 years of history, but rather five. And perhaps they will not be based on physical assets, but rather on another type of digital asset. Probably 40% of today's most important companies will have disappeared.
Will it mostly be tech companies at the top?
We currently understand technology as a vertical, when technology will become a horizontal; it will be an intrinsic part of all sectors. They will not be tech companies as we understand them today, they will be what we know as software companies, working with data and they will come from any sector. All companies will be organisations, this is the great paradigm shift, we have to stop thinking that the focus is on software, apps or hardware; the focus is on data, which means artificial intelligence and knowledge, and that can be taken and processed in any sector.
Will technology, companies, employees change? Also the role of management?
It will change a lot. If we look at the time an executive invests, we will see that 40% is devoted to monitoring and follow-up, 20% to innovation and strategy, and the rest to developing teams. If 40% of the work is to be automated, there will be a need for more investment in innovation and strategy. The executive of the future will have to develop skills related to data comparison, understanding knowledge, mastering new technology and developing teams. There is already an American law office that has a robolawyer, so there will be a need to understand managing mixed teams and new work processes. It is still all to be seen, but it is clear that the traditional executive and company has to change.
Among the changes, will there also be more women heading tech companies?
No doubt. There is a long way to go, but we are making good progress. Nearly 30% of students doing technical degrees are now women and in our company 40% of us are women. Traditionally, there have been very few women in the sector, but we need to take into account that in Spain it is hard to innovate because adequate mechanisms do not exist for tech companies to grow and allow for more women. At the board level there is still a big gap, but it has got better. Men also want balance between the professional and personal worlds because nor can they find a balance, as they spend all day working and do not see their children. I have often been asked how I do it and I always say that it is as difficult to find the balance as it is for a man. The day that there is no recognition like the Insights Success list of influential women, it will be because we have overcome this.
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