AI tools that actually do something — beyond the hype and 'sales pitch'

“Does this tool actually change the world?” That was the most pressing question at the recent India AI Impact Summit for Dean Karlan, professor of economics and finance at Northwestern University and former chief economist at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

At a seminar hosted by The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, or J-PAL, researchers in fields from disaster preparedness to agriculture to health emphasized the need for a more cautious, evaluation-based approach to artificial intelligence.

At the moment, “there’s more hype, there’s more excitement, than actual evidence” that AI tools have an impact, Karlan told Devex on the sidelines of the summit, where he was presenting his research on AI tools in Togo.