Leda Writes for Fintech Futures: AI and natural reluctance

Every Thursday, Leda Glyptis, CEO of 11:FS Foundry creates #LedaWrites. This week she examines AI and spooking Sibos delegates.

I love Sibos. Have I mentioned how much I love Sibos?

Seriously. At the risk of sounding exactly like the rapidly ageing nerd that I am, I love Sibos because it is a grown up conference.

Despite the swag and daytime drinking, Sibos is different from all other industry events for two simple reasons: firstly, the content is mature, complex and often dense. Complicated or not, if we as an industry need to know it and think about it, we will talk about it.

Every year I get to achieve something and learn something at Sibos, which is more than I can say about most weeks and any other conference.

Nobody said it would be easy. As always, up close, opportunity looks like hard work

And this year was no exception. Among other weird and wonderful things, I got to chair an AI panel with three incredibly brilliant people full of stories, insight and the experience of things going wrong before they go right. If ever in doubt, that is the surest way of testing whether someone really has the battle scars they claim they have. Their stories go wrong before they go right.

Don’t spook them

The first thing I told my panelists by way of prep was don’t spook the audience. Don’t lose them.

Don’t go too technical, too futuristic. Give them something they can sink their teeth into. Give them something relatable and accessible.

And they did. They talked about AI helping us sift through masses of information and detecting patterns that were always there but the human mind couldn’t see them through the vastness of detail: they talked about realising that we, as an industry, are many times more likely to flag a transaction as suspicious if the client is called Mohammed than if he is called Maurice. AI helped us see the bias, humans helped us address it.

My panel did their job beautifully: inspire, incite, terrify

Relatable stories. Real examples.

And they talked about the very human challenge of coming to terms with what has only been recently possible. Digesting. Believing. Trusting.

Spook them

The second thing I told my panelists by way of prep was spook the audience. Scare the living daylights out of them.

We are bankers. You don’t want to tell us “there is a long way to go here” because all we will hear is “this is the next guy’s problem, you have enough burning platforms on your hands so you can allow yourself the relief of not worrying about everything”. If the technology is years away from being mature, the banker is light years away from being engaged. Don’t lull them into a sense of security because it would be false. This technology is very much here. And although there is a long way ahead of it towards maturity, there is a long way behind it too and it’s more than able to kick ass today, thank you very much.

It is here. Don’t sit back.

Nobody said it would be easy. As always, up close, opportunity looks like hard work.

My panel did their job beautifully: inspire, incite, terrify.

The future does not come easy and success does not come free. Time to get to work.

Read the whole story at Fintech Futures.