Imagine if artificial intelligence (AI) could pick the next Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Bill Gates or Elon Musk? It may be just around the corner according to a QUT researcher into entrepreneurship.
A QUT study is looking for thousands of people to complete a short online survey asking them to look at photographs and identify which people are entrepreneurs. The results will be compared to the performance of AI models given the same challenge.
Led by Professor Martin Obschonka Director of QUT’s Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research, the aim of the project is to gauge the capacity of modern AI in recognising entrepreneurship potential in a variety of people.
“Participants will view a dozen sets of photographs featuring two faces of real people. They have to pick which of the two is an entrepreneur,” Professor Obschonka.
“It only takes about three minutes and results are provided instantly. You get to see how well you fared against AI which, at this stage, is remarkably accurate and more so than many humans.
“500 entrepreneurs in the United States have already completed the survey but we hope to attract at least 3000 more in Australia.
“The survey is designed to be fun but has serious implications when you consider facial recognition AI models are increasingly used in security, crime detection, education and other areas.
“The power and limits of AI in outperforming humans is an important and fascinating research field, we therefore developed this word-wide first test.
“Think of it as like the Shark Tank program but instead of a panel of human judges, AI would identify the next Elon Musk or Bill Gates. It will also have implications for education, government policy and education.”
Professor Obschonka is supported in the project by associate researchers Professor Clinton Fookes and Dr Tharindu Warnakulasuriya from QUT’s School of Electrical Engineering & Robotics.
