All Drupa exhibitions have some kind of sobriquet after the doors close and visitors and pundits have a chance to ponder over the themes of the show they have seen. Thus we have had the CTP Drupa, the digital print Drupa and most recently the inkjet and Landa Drupa. Even this one, the Drupa that was not there, will receive some kind of descriptor. I suggest the AI Drupa.
Artificial intelligence made an appearance both on the platform of the conference sessions where it seems that mention of the untold benefits of AI was obligatory. Michael Gale, one of the keynote speakers and an evangelist for AI, even declared that 70% of GDP growth in the years until 2030, would be attributable to AI. I cannot claim to have Gale’s indepth knowledge of these issues, but as another speaker, Gabrielle Walker, predicted that the main stimulus to economic growth would be sustainability and the drive for a carbon-free future, I suspect that someone is over egging the argument.
There is no doubt that printers would do well to acquaint themselves about AI and the terminology, or rather the jargon, used. It can be used to obfuscate as much as to enlighten. One speaker even referred to AI as artificial ignorance. In a century or so’s time people will look back on what we call artificial intelligence now and laugh. It is machine learning, extrapolating patterns from very large data sets and applying those patterns to predict what might occur next. In predictive maintenance this is incredibly useful. In digital workflows it means that end to end automation becomes possible. But there is no real creativity, no originality, no intelligence.
The problem is now, not that we can argue about what is and what is not artificial intelligence. It is that less than 10% of a traditional Drupa audience registered to take part and to listen to these discussions. This makes 2021’s edition the AI Drupa – the Almost Invisible Drupa. That is far more worrying for the immediate future than whether a press can think for itself.
Looking back on the AI Drupa
All Drupa exhibitions have some kind of sobriquet after the doors close and visitors and pundits have a chance to ponder over the themes of the show they have seen. Thus we have had the CTP Drupa, the digital print Drupa and most recently the inkjet and Landa Drupa. Even this one, the Drupa that was not there, will receive some kind of descriptor. I suggest the AI Drupa.
Artificial intelligence made an appearance both on the platform of the conference sessions where it seems that mention of the untold benefits of AI was obligatory. Michael Gale, one of the keynote speakers and an evangelist for AI, even declared that 70% of GDP growth in the years until 2030, would be attributable to AI. I cannot claim to have Gale’s indepth knowledge of these issues, but as another speaker, Gabrielle Walker, predicted that the main stimulus to economic growth would be sustainability and the drive for a carbon-free future, I suspect that someone is over egging the argument.
There is no doubt that printers would do well to acquaint themselves about AI and the terminology, or rather the jargon, used. It can be used to obfuscate as much as to enlighten. One speaker even referred to AI as artificial ignorance. In a century or so’s time people will look back on what we call artificial intelligence now and laugh. It is machine learning, extrapolating patterns from very large data sets and applying those patterns to predict what might occur next. In predictive maintenance this is incredibly useful. In digital workflows it means that end to end automation becomes possible. But there is no real creativity, no originality, no intelligence.
The problem is now, not that we can argue about what is and what is not artificial intelligence. It is that less than 10% of a traditional Drupa audience registered to take part and to listen to these discussions. This makes 2021’s edition the AI Drupa – the Almost Invisible Drupa. That is far more worrying for the immediate future than whether a press can think for itself.
Gareth Ward
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