Napo Cornejo (Geokapti): CX in the World of Quantum Computing | #89
there's a famous quote that says I'm not scared about AI I'm scared of space travel no no creme brulee thank you for coming all the way from the Netherlands a lot of things first of all to meet you some studies says the human brain is actually shrinking I'm adding to the study it's definitely backing up the theory yeah hey everyone welcome back to the CX Insider podcast today we talk to napo founder and director of geocapty a tech company who innovates software Solutions using satellites we'll learn about current and future technological advancements that will change customer experience like Quantum Computing and AI enjoy the conversation and if you do why not subscribe to our YouTube channel for CX Insider's best content by the way this podcast is brought to you by ACF Technologies global leaders in customer experience Management Solutions all right thank you very much for coming on the podcast Snappers pleasure to meet you and have you on here thank you to get started would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself who you are and what you do yes uh well first of all thank you for having me here pleasure to meet you my name is Napoleon Cornejo rather unusual name but I come from El Salvador and now living in the Netherlands I'm uh originally a software engineer now the head of a company called geocapti in the Netherlands where I've been living the past 15 years or so we work doing mostly scientific software research software engineering software dealing with AI Quantum Computing Aerospace and other high-tech Industries yeah and that has brought me here today cool okay so what that's obviously quite a lot of different areas that you're involved with there what are some of the most exciting projects that you're working on right now or it may be something you could share yeah so we are working currently for example in a project that processes large volumes of satellite data to detect soil moisture in Europe so we take data from Radars that are in satellites these orbit the earth periodically and we take the signals from this radar to say something about the moisture of the soil in this case in Europe because the soil absorbs these signals in different way when it's dry and when it's wet and this information helps agricultural policies conservation Etc and the other project that maybe I can mention is one that has to do with Quantum Computing here we are writing the software to control the smallest components of the quantum computer called qubits so we help a research institute in the Netherlands to achieve that sort of control and then besides that we have other projects related to artificial intelligence machine learning some of which we are working with ACS I used to think quantum computers were just this kind of sci-fi dream you know something in the future and uh Computing obviously has come such a long way from its Inception could you share what a quantum computer actually is what that means what it's capable of yeah so indeed there's a lot of of a lot going on around quantum computers as a but the idea actually comes back to the end of the 70s early 80s we didn't have the technology there but that's when the theory really got started a prominent physicist who talked about this idea was Richard Feynman he won the Nobel Prize in physics he posts some of the first principles of quantum Computing how you could make computations with quantum mechanics and now what we're trying to do is actually bring that into reality so these quantum computers are composed at the very end of what are called qubits which are the analogous of classical bits which can store ones in zeros but these qubits can store a myriad of other possibilities and it's in that Myriad of other possibilities that you can get the large amounts of computation of course there are challenges making stable qubits in that don't fade away with noise is extremely difficult and probably that's the biggest challenge at the moment that's where the software that we're writing right now comes in in trying to control these qubits to keep them stable as long as possible so they can actually do something useful what are some of the possibilities that it could bring to life in terms of achieving different computations yes I think I I should start by saying that there's a bit of misconceptions in terms of quantum Computing some people think that this will actually replace the computers we use today that's not true it will be a complement to classical computers so it will not substitute them but they will be dedicating to solving very particular problems especially problems where you need to try hundreds or millions of possibilities quickly yeah this is where Quantum Computing really excels because as I said before a lot of possibilities can be encoded in a single qubit at the same time so the values that it can store at the same time are infinite in theory and therefore you can search and compute which much more values in less time so for example optimization problems where you need to search a lot of possibilities what's more optimal what's not based on hundreds or even thousands of variables then Quantum compute then can be here to actually compute all these possibilities rather quickly which a classical computer could take years to compute yeah machine learning where you need to explore data create models taking into account thousands of variables or hundreds of thousands of variables or Millions Quantum Computing can help there as well these can further be applied in Industries like Finance Logistics mathematical modeling scientific research etc etc this is a you say it's a more of a complement to Everyday Computing do you think it could be quite a practical thing in the near future that although it won't replace normal computers it will be quite common or widespread not at the moment right now it's quite experimental and very new and again there are a lot of challenges to make it practical at the moment the only quantum computers that exist are in Labs with extremely well controlled temperatures that almost reach absolute zero these need to be controlled and manipulated with lasers or microwave is so it's all these big refrigerators just to store a tiny little chip but it's it takes a big refrigerator control with liquid nitrogen and so on and so forth to make it work so at the moment it's just experimental they live in laboratoriums it's not practical yet but as all of Technology right it begins this way sure just like the current computers began this way yeah exactly as very big building size computers which then became smaller and smaller until you have a cell phone yeah in the palm of your hand so technology starts this way Quantum Computing is just at the beginning so it's rather expected that it is like this as years go on and time goes on I think there'll be good progress made I cannot make predictions of when it will actually become that was going to be my household a household item but maybe practical uses are not that far away five ten years perhaps still carried out in in Labs but solving already important problems yeah it's maybe not a household item but maybe businesses could start using using it for improving their customer experience so for example cloud services they could have their quantum computers in their own installations right and just hire it over the cloud to solve specific problems that's how I think it'll start it won't be a quantum computer in your house perhaps yeah maybe one day that's uh that's really fascinating surely there's also quite a few risks that come with that post Quantum encryption yeah could you explore that idea and what it means and are there any potential risks yes so as with every technology of course you could use it for either good purposes or bad purposes I mean you could say that of fire even yeah so Quantum Computing is not the exception one of the areas that's being explored is indeed encryption because current methods of encryptions are based on the fact that finding the solution to the encryption problem takes millions of years for a classical computer there are just so many possibilities like with passwords yes with passwords but this one even even more difficult because they are mathematic complicated using numbers that are hundreds of thousands digits long multiplied with several operations and Cycles so you need to find the right combination of these numbers to actually being able to decrypt the key it's it's extremely difficult and takes a classical computer millions of years to solve but as I said before with quantum computers is qubits are able to encode a myriad of possibilities at the same time in the same qubit so it's calculating all these possibilities at the same time or at least in theory is able to do that which means that guessing all these combinations of numbers and operations to unencrypt your key basically in a Brute Force way could be done realistically within a time that is actually threatening to your yeah Bank new security concerns yeah exactly that's why part of the research that's been done in Quantum Computing is what are the ways encryption can be enhanced to avoid this so that's what we call called post Quantum encryption so encryption schemes that will be able to withstand the computations done by a quantum computer that's a very real risk isn't it for us and one that has to be sold because like you mentioned there banking people's money sits on top of technology that utilizes what we what you're referring to there is like the sort of the current encryption whereas Quantum Computing would be able to solve that within yeah shorter time exponentially quicker time frames let's say certainly or Communications your WhatsApp your signal messenger these are all based on the principles of encryption if these are broken then well your communication is exposed what do you think are the first uses of quantum Computing that we will see one of the the first applications that's already going on is quantum communication where you can really entangle two particles and actually make them communicate qubits entangle qubits this communication is ultra secure right because it's based on the principles of quantum mechanics that means that an eavesdropper will disturb the state taking an impossible for the community application to go on further so they are already testing the first quantum network to make this type of communication and they're already deploying the first prototype of this and the other application that's already going on is modeling molecules for example when you want to create a specific type of medicine at the very molecular level these are based on shape how proteins fold and how they match with each other and so forth it is extremely difficult it is a rather difficult problem to solve with a classical computer quantum computers which already work with Quantum principles that are the ones that play on the molecular level they can solve these problems much more academics so and there's already papers and literature on how this could be solved at least in theory once these qubits are there and find out new molecules for therapies this will come into play for finance for example calculating risks on real time using worldwide data and at every moment calculating your risk and knowing your risk position extremely valuable Logistics problems on a worldwide level shipping Commerce these are all applications that are already being thought of space travel uh space Communications Communications okay travel maybe not yet oh yeah but space Communications I mean the Chinese already have a satellite that uses Quantum communication a lot of applications coming in yeah yeah watch this space there is obviously quite a lot to explore with Quantum Computing having given an overview of its applications and challenges now let's link back to a more familiar development artificial intelligence is also a huge piece of tech that's already changing the way we work personal assistants like Siri and Alexa have been around for a while but services like chat GPT and dial e are pushing the boundaries further as both Ai and Quantum Computing grow how might the two intertwine can they be combined for even greater power and potential so there are several ways in which this interaction can happen so how can Quantum Computing AIDS AI is indeed because of the possibilities of computing with large amounts of data in the qubit being able to encode such a myriad amount of states in compute with them at the same time so whereas a classical computer has to go through each state one at a time and compute the variables optimize neural Nets adjust neural Nets or whatever the qubits or quantum computer could be doing these possibilities at the same time several several of them at the moment I guess we're impressed with what we can see from GPT and technologies that use AI like this and I guess what you're sort of saying there is that if you combine Quantum Computing with AI technology we could see something exponentially even more powerful than what we already are very impressive yeah impressible yes take charge GPT for example and you've seen the results it produces text that is very human-like I mean it's something like a human being could write but at the very end Chad GPT works on calculating probabilities based on a neural network that's been properly tuned with a lot text and examples and human generated content and after being trained this massive neural network which is about 175 billion parameters it produces what you can see take into account the amount of resources to make all this computation to do the training data the time it takes if you can already see that combination with other Technologies it's just going to get more and more impressive chat GPT is just a neural network that's guessing the best next race or the best next word now that brings a bit of a philosophical question right because okay if that's the only thing that it's doing but produces human-like text is that really like the way the human brain actually works then do we actually work a bit that way that we think about something and then try to guess what's the next likely follow up to what we're saying so it brings up all sorts of interesting questions beyond computer science yeah because it tells you doesn't it like I'm just an AI I don't really I don't have opinions but these are kind of the facts or this is what I can kind of stream from the data and then you just have to kind of run with it and I suppose that's why that human layer of interpretation will always be there as a that layer on top I suppose with Quantum Computing coming into the conversation as well I feel like it's quite hard to actually imagine what the uses will be and how we will be using these Technologies in the future 10 20 years ago you wouldn't have guessed you know what's going on now precisely it is great discussing the future of technology and how it will reshape the business world but the question of Ethics Looms in the background like some shapeless Shadow because there are surely many benefits but it's also easy to grow anxious about the inevitable drawbacks of rapidly implementing this kind of tech so will Humanity adapt in time or will we get left behind I think that human beings will adapt AI can be a very powerful tool that could make our work more efficient if we learn how to use it properly it can automate a lot of things to give us more time to actually do the creative stuff could substitute I guess some jobs others it will make it more efficient and humans will have to adapt to that you don't see people working in telegraphs or in switchboards yeah Generations have to adapt yeah there are new jobs where technology helps you become more productive um you saw this letter put out by several companies or CEOs and scientists on having a moratorium on AI because now with chat GPT people are starting to get scared could be damaging for Humanity but it's not realistic someone somewhere will continue to develop AI a government an organization a single individual in the research institute if you make a moratorium on AI what you're basically saying is okay we'll pause so that you can get an advantage yeah yeah what do you feel about artificial intelligence making decisions in more critical situations like like in healthcare for example there's a lot of research on AI that interprets X-ray and actually in some cases it comes to make a better diagnosis than actual Specialists but it also does make mistakes and the problem is can you hold the machine responsible for the life of a human being can you can you take it to court where is the liability so AI is a tool to help us become better and in this particular case like healthcare it should always be vetted by a human specialist a doctor or a council with the AI as an input but not as the final decision maker yeah actually is the morally best place for it to stay for now right indeed but take for example cases where there's no chance to do a review automatic driving for example in a car whether you're in a situation where the car has to go somewhere and there's a person in front but if you move it somewhere else there's two persons on the other side so yeah yeah it's is that what should you choose right um stop the car I suppose yeah if if that's not possible if you're in the highway or so forth but even in the normal situation if for some reason there's a mistake there's a flop in the computer or whatever and you run over someone can you hold the machine responsible who's the responsible party there is it the maker of the car is it the software developer of the AI who is or is it the driver or is it the driver so this is a bit more tricky yeah if there's a driver but if the car is fully autonomous it's even more difficult a question I'm always asking myself which is why don't we have technology where you can speak to me in Spanish and I can hear it in English and I can speak to you in English and you hear it in Spanish in real time how far away from that technology actually that's not far away I've seen some prototypes of that YouTube has automatic translation and there's already software that can synthesize voices out of text putting all those parts together there are prototypes okay I don't know of any commercial company that's maybe there is I just haven't noticed but I know there are prototypes of that we're so used to it yeah we don't see a miracle in it anymore it's an everyday thing but it actually took a lot of effort and a lot of research to get this translation software to get working and I'm sure the same thing will happen to this voice synthesizers plus translation on real time in a way do you think that's maybe like encouraging or letting people learn languages less like you know because if you're trying to speak to someone you have that technology that can just give you that instant access to that information do that it takes away like the whole education and learning aspect of learning a whole language because obviously a language and things like that are so beneficial to the brain right from like a wider AI perspective as well do you think like integrating all these automated Technologies into society will have negative impacts there are studies being done that says that the human brain the size of the human brain has actually shrunk human beings from ten thousand twenty thousand years ago who had to memorize where was the tree for apples where was the way to to hunt as they I mean they knew their environment very well all of these sorts of skills that they had to learn and be quick about them which we don't need anymore yeah we don't need anymore so when you say about languages indeed I do think that because a lot of people learn languages out of necessity they actually needed to speak another language these technologies will take out that need yeah out of the equation so there's no real push or or need to learn it it's only if you if you want it but not really because you need it and the same happens with other Technologies take maps for example yeah before Google Maps to take that paper and actually know how to read it right and look for the actual Street and yeah even oriented the right way to find your way around cooking starting a fire whatever it all required skills and brain power and that's why when you say is it having an impact on the brain some studies says that yes human brain is actually shrinking it's a bomb shelter yeah what time frame was it done it's tens of thousands of years no it's not hundreds of years no no it's it's tens of thousands of years indeed but I think I think it's right yeah I'm adding to the study definitely backing up the theory yeah I think there is that danger though isn't there like if we don't use our brains because everything is done for us then what's going to happen precisely indeed and I think that that's one of the drivers of this this phenomenon that we don't need to use all the skills that previous humans had to use so will the Sci-Fi films are wrong these aliens don't have massive effects no that's right and let's bring the conversation home how will Quantum Computing and artificial intelligence alter the customer experience how will these things specifically impact the business world and why should companies even care nappos shares his thoughts on the new age of customer Journeys yeah you can easily imagine how chat GPT will impact the chatbot technology where you can train it with your own material with your own marketing material your own documents your own history and then produce a chatbot that actually has the knowledge to respond properly to questions made by customers imagine how many customers you can now answer questions to which before you needed a customer agent to be responding each of these questions right yeah yeah so that's already one big thing the other is optimizing the customer Journey For example estimating the proper attention times or who should handle his case assigning the proper resources having models that predict the demand of customer service as well so all of these go straight into the applications of AI could have a big impact in this industry everything I said about Quantum Computing that will actually make it even more powerful than you can imagine already how this will change and it's good to talk about the fact that you work with a ACF Technologies today with us on you know our own artificial intelligence technology and how we're planning to help our customers and future customers transform customer experience using that technology do you see AI playing a role not just yet in the customer facing side but also in the back office side so you know where operation the organizations are managing availability of resource you know back office decisions is it there as well certainly certainly yeah and that's one of the things we work on optimizing processes AI can build models based on previous history and previous results to find out what are the proper variables to make a decision who should take a hold of a case what resources should you assign to a certain amount of cases yeah predict the resources you will need for that day optimize the scheduling of doctors nurses that all happens in the in the back end it doesn't happen on the face of the customer it really makes his experience much more enjoyable more efficient with less burden it really it really makes an impact if we think about what great customer experience means especially in the future and I think we're working towards it customer engagement with any organization customers want to engage on the channel at the time in the means that they feel is best for them you know and sometimes it's in person sometimes it's via chat could be via video I feel like the future is only driving in One Direction which is that customers are going to be more demanding on what they want and they're going to get exactly what they want and maybe technology like AI is going to be the only way for an organization to deliver to that expectation I think it's indispensable there won't be a way around it companies that really want to provide and enhance customer experience should embrace this and become familiar with it and learn to use them okay these peripheral very Advanced Technologies quite commonly it's Engineers talking to Engineers taking that conversation and converting into business language and business benefits for customer experience how does an organization go about that it's a million dollar question yeah for engineers it's really difficult to communicate with non-engineer with commercial people with marketing people because we're used to speaking in the language of equations software algorithms functions files that's the language we speak with it's a very deterministic concrete static language commercial people marketing people they deal with other human beings if an organization really wants to take a leap in these new technologies which they should they should embrace them because the world is moving in that direction they should really try to get people that can serve as a bridge between these two worlds having people that can bridge this to Worlds is an extremely extremely valuable asset thanks for listening we hope you enjoyed the podcast and if you did why not subscribe to our YouTube channel for access to full length videos and YouTube shorts you can also like share and comment on the episode to keep the conversation going and be sure to check out cxinsider.com for more content now if you wish to join our growing community of thought leaders head over to LinkedIn and follow us at cxinsider podcast to stay updated thanks again I've been Marcel and I will see you in two weeks but for now enjoy our rapid fire questions by the way this podcast has been brought to you by ACF Technologies global leaders in customer experience Management Solutions so my first question is what is your favorite thing about your job working with Scientists because I learned a lot from from them in the science yeah I'm sure that's really fascinating especially for someone who understands what they're saying as well well to a certain extent I still have my questions but it's it's fun to engage with them and see what they're working on and they're they're reeling at The Cutting Edge of knowledge yeah is there anything that you've like regretted buying the most a lot of things I've regretted buying probably a bid the cheapest that I could find in but it was really really bad so I really regretted that I should have invested more in that yeah invest in your sleep yes exactly if you could transform into any animal what would it be and why it definitely would have to be a bird I'd like the freedom of flying maybe an eagle perhaps and what's your favorite dessert creme brulee I love it nice straight answer we can tell it that it's true yes at the top of my mind and if you could interview anyone Dead or Alive who would that be Isaac Newton probably just being able to tell him what has happened since his theory of gravity I think it will blow his mind do you think yeah do you think he could comprehend anything I think he could the way the story of how he came up with his theory of gravity is is really impressive so I I think not only understand it but he would be just fascinated favorite holiday destination that I still haven't gone to is Nepal I want to go to Tibet I want to see the Himalayas with my own eyes would you climb any of them no I'll probably die if I try I don't have the training and uh skip that I'll skip that just as long as I appreciate it before yeah I appreciate it from afar I mean they say even getting to Camp zero is already a massive effort yeah that's right so I look at from afar correct any other questions from you guys in the audience what scares you the most about AI what scares me the most about AI there's a famous quote that says I'm not scared about AI I'm scared of people people they actually make decisions that impact on the way we use technology right they are the final decision makers on how this technology is used or how is it overseen or what are the regulations and if that's not done properly then that can have an actual impact not only in the company but also in the country I'm more scared of people instead of AI [Music] foreign [Music]
2023-05-17 00:49
