While the Las Vegas casinos shuddered at the thought of hundreds of AI specialists ‘beating the house’, I attended the inaugural re:MARS event, hosted by Amazon. The event gave an exciting peek at what this new world of space travel, automation, AI and robotics means for us, mere mortals.

While Amazon showcased many of their own innovations driven by AI; it’s the customer obsession and single-minded focus on fixing problems that stood out. At Amazon Go, it was the mindset of “it’s not impossible, it just has not been done yet” that led to the launch. Seeing what’s involved in having technology track customers simultaneously as they come in store; in groups or individuals; track who moves back, forward and back again; monitor what’s picked up and put down and then billed accurately is phenomenal. Uncompromising in not accepting solutions where customers had to scan an article or hold up to camera, they persevered relentlessly until it was completely seamless. Similarly, with Alexa conversations, seeing the semantic data stream required to ask Alexa to book a cinema ticket and have her suggest a taxi pick up, appropriate restaurant and the collaboration required between Atom/Uber and Open Table was inspiring.

The good news is that it’s more about people than tech: Collaboration; diverse thinking and the ability to be truly empathetic. As Andrew Ng, Founder and CEO of Landing A1, said, “with AI there is so much we could do we need to focus on what we should do.” This was the first event of its kind where the onus was very much in the hands of attendees to interpret and take forward. “Go Build” was the mantra of the day.

There was a willingness to embrace intelligence in all its forms: athletic and academic. The intelligence that enables us to plan, to understand versus that which allows our bodies to work, balance or gymnasts to perform torques that would require millions of advanced calculations to compute. A sense that there is a need for us as humans to have broad and deep points of view and to change them.  And, a recognition that to change the world we need to be able to have great ideas and be able to articulate them.

Sharing was a constant theme with most speakers calling out to attendees for help; for inspiration to further debate and collaborate. There was a feeling that it was incumbent on those of us attending to educate others and to make sure that we participated and didn’t just observe.

Some stand out thoughts:

• Democratisation – accessibility, giving people the opportunity to use emerging tools to do more themselves. Advanced analytics where you’d previously need a PHD, now available as plug and play.
• Seamless, transformational experiences – making technology useful. Better visual recognition; advanced voice control.
• Look for the real problem behind the problem – e.g. If you label data better, you can input it better and use it better (simple things = big answers). Facts are not the same as knowledge.
• Scalable – making machine learning applicable to cure cancer; create sustainable food sources and make the world cleaner.

Some great advice for entrepreneurs from the richest man in the world is to focus on being a missionary and not a mercenary and be absolutely customer obsessed.  To take risks and be willing to accept that it’s an experiment. And what seems appropriate for an event held in the casino capital of the world. When there is no right answer, Jeff Bezos says, “just gamble with me on this”.

Finally, privacy; safety as issues were very much at the forefront but so too was the need for us all to take responsibility. That this is just the start of the discussion. It’s clear what we need to do – to use technology and get involved with what it can potentially do. To work with our clients to create new experiences; to iterate and learn.

What will you “Go Build” today?