Planning for successful AI
AA: When it comes to organizations applying AI, we often hear in the media that failure rates of 85% are common. If we take that statistic as a fact, would you say that the same failure rates apply to finance?
IH: I think that the 80% failure rate is probably a more universal number that goes beyond data science and the financial industry. I would estimate that that’s probably correct for any new project in science, and in business too. From my personal experience, I know that about 80% of ideas that I have had at different points in time went wrong.
Also, if you look at the success rate of technology start-ups, it’s probably even less than 20%. Even more than 80% of them fail in the end, and the ways to fail can be many. There was once a show on TV called 1,000 Ways to Die, which was a kind of horror show recreating all sorts of stories about how people accidentally died. It may not be quite that grave, but there are still many ways...