AI has penetrated our lives in a way that sometimes we don’t even realize. Devices and applications we use, are becoming smarter every day. An AI system knows more than what we know about ourselves. It is faster and more accurate than us in specific tasks. Each one of us occupy the AI landscape in one way or the other. Let us look at these categories in more detail.

Each one of us in the digital world can fall into one or more of the below 3 groups;

1. Users (U) - All application users and Data creators.
2. Solvers (S) - Solve business use cases.
3. Creators (C) - Bring in advancement in the field of AI.

In the AI landscape, majority of them fall into the User group. They can be users of a smartphone, Whatsapp, Facebook, browsers, online shopping, digital payment, health app, etc. Users are the final decision-makers of an AI system. 

We all generate data every day, lots and lots of data. This is the reason AI systems today know more than ourselves. They can store/remember enormous amounts of data/information and analyze/make connections between them in multi-dimensional

 space, which is something that humans lack. It can remember, where all you have been on what dates, what all you have shopped at what frequency, where all you have spent, what medicines you are taking, how your physical activity has been, your medical report, etc. It can do this not just for your entire life but for everyone else who has fallen into the digital trap. Tech giants give peanuts as rewards to this group and in return just clone them. But this is the most creative group of all and puts life into products.

The AI footprint which was once a very small part of the digital landscape is filling it up faster than ever before. All thanks to the User group. But the User group cannot exist without the other two groups and vice versa with each one having a dependency on the others.

The Solver group is composed of people who consume, “data from users” and “methods from creators”, to solve real-world problems. This is the group that has the knowledge of one or more of, the domain, frameworks, MLOps, programming, system design, architecture, algorithm limitations, technologies, etc. This is the group that is most sought after by the industry and in high demand. There can be multiple subgroups in solvers, like ones specialized in just MLOps, or system design, etc. This group is mainly comprised of engineers.

The Creator group is the one that comes up with SOTA algorithms. Without this group, the solvers have no demand, because the field becomes static. The solver group should be very appreciative of that, which I generally don't see. This is the smallest group in the AI landscape. They are highly skilled in the various subfields of mathematics and understand the domain well. This group is any nation’s asset. The creator group can actually play the role of a solver or a user in the worst case. This group is mainly comprised of academicians and research groups.

By now you would have probably figured out where you stand in this AI landscape. Getting into the User group is the easiest of all, followed by Solver and Creator. When it comes to core technical knowledge in AI, Creators are the most skilled followed by Solvers and Users.

Photo by DeepMind on Unsplash