How will innovation increasingly impact Hawai’i and our economic future? Jay Andrews, Director of Marketing for Oceanit, presented on the subject ‘AI, Robots, and Automation’ at the 5th Annual Leadership Conference hosted by Hawaii Business Magazine on July 26th at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. The goal was to inform attendees on technological trends that will and are shaping the future. Oceanit believes that to prepare our leaders of tomorrow we must clarify misconceptions about both the practicality and potential of AI technology and the possible consequences.
The theme of the Leadership Conference was ‘Resilience’ and Jay discussed the idea of education and innovation being the key to prepare for upcoming driving economic forces in Hawaii, potentially displacing the military and tourism as our key to economic resilience. To pacify concerns about automation replacing human jobs, he shared examples of industries where jobs have evolved with technological advances, but where the number of humans at these jobs has increased.
The key Oceanit belief is that innovation – and AI in particular – will empower us, not overpower us. Technology and automation have always augmented human abilities and productivity, evolving our tasks and eliminating the drudgery of certain types of labor. Oceanit’s work in AI, like Harvest Vision, shows that technology can actually team-up with human operators to make industries like agriculture far more productive than ever, meaning waste-savings and making job growth possible.
The keynote speaker at the 5th annual conference, astronaut Scott Kelly, spoke to the theme “The Sky is Not the Limit” and discussed his four missions to space, one of which lasted a record-breaking 340 days consecutively. He discussed how resilience, sacrifice, and teamwork was required and how those things are required to be an innovator in any field.
For more on the conference, visit https://www.hawaiibusiness.com/sky-is-not-the-limit-lc18/
