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Editorial

PLATFORMS AND MODELS AND BOTS

– OH MY! WHAT I DISCOVERED WHILE

PREPARING FOR A CRE AI WEBINAR

CHUCK NISWONGER
President Hospitality, customer service, or tenant concierge-style
NiceNets Consulting models require effective natural language processing
capability or the ability to accurately translate written text
WHEN THE FOLKS at Realcomm asked me if (in multiple languages) to appear as if they respond with
I would be willing to moderate their webinar human-like intelligence and courtesy. A building utility
titled “Artificial Intelligence in Commercial usage application may need to process millions of data
and Corporate Real Estate–Hype or Reality,” I points from IoT sensors in search of repeatable patterns
quickly agreed, since I wanted to learn more about this topic. from which they can ‘learn’ what is ‘normal’ and what is
Then I realized that I should probably learn more about it outside of upper and lower control limits. Machine learn-
before moderating a large group of expert panelists! So, I ing applications must focus on specific document types
started reading article after blog post after newsletter. They or common language structures if they are to increase
just kept popping into my Inbox at a rate I hadn’t noticed their translation accuracy percentages over time—the
before. It was probably like when you decide to purchase a learning process. As their accuracy increases, so does
new car—all of a sudden, those cars are everywhere! There is their ability to alert humans to out-of-tolerance conditions,
certainly a lot of discussion going on about AI in commercial provide recommendations, and even initiate autonomous
real estate technology forums, so does that, by definition, system corrections.
make it ‘hype’? Hype is defined as extravagant or intensive
publicity. It also refers to promoting or publicizing a product AI is the Underlying Tool, Not the Application
or idea intensively, often exaggerating its importance or In the first of a four-part series published by Cushman
benefits. I put together this montage from a collection of & Wakefield Research, “Will Robots Take Over CRE?
Realcomm Conference Live videos recorded during the last Driverless Cars, Blockchain, and other Transformative
two conferences. It sure seems like hype, ending appropri- Technologies,” I noticed that the term Artificial
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ately with advice from Robert Entin, EVP & CIO at Vornado Intelligence wasn’t even mentioned. When I asked Revathi
Realty Trust, about “balancing exuberance and caution.” Greenwood (America’s Head of Research for Cushman
& Wakefield) about this omission, she replied, “I am not
AI Has Different Meanings in Different Settings planning to focus specifically on AI, but will be covering it
It is important to clarify exactly what we are talking insofar as it factors into the technologies we are consid-
about when we engage in a conversation about Artificial ering such as intelligent autonomous vehicles, rideshares,
Intelligence. Many might immediately jump to the concept intelligent drones, and autonomous mobile robotics.” AI is
of Artificial General Intelligence in which a (hypothetical) simply implied within the narrow solution set of enhanced
machine could successfully perform any intellectual task business processes and assistive capabilities. In fact, we
that a human can. We should emphasize any intellectual might consider repurposing the acronym AI as Assistive
task. This is most evident in science fiction movies and or Augmented Intelligence, as there is nothing really ‘arti-
books. It is also an important topic for futurists, many of ficial’ about it.
whom have predicted its reality by 2050. However, even
though computers have beaten the game masters at Platforms
chess, jeopardy, and go, their algorithms and models are When companies make the decision to explore projects
specifically designed with very narrow parameters. This using AI capabilities, they are going to require a platform
leads us to the more focused, specific applications using on which to develop the application. The platform of
‘narrow’ artificial intelligence today. choice becomes driven by their specific project require-

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