#16: No Code and Low Code

Ian Bowie
Hello and welcome to AI unfiltered with me Ian Bowie and our resident expert, Michael Stormbom, where we will be talking about everything to do with AI in our modern digital society and what the future holds for all of us.

I thought today, it would be quite interesting to talk about something that I’ve just read about which is low code or no code AI, and the fact that then you can get non technical people creating AI-based algorithms with no knowledge of how you actually build them.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, indeed, and it doesn’t apply only to AI, but the general rule no code, low code, movement, that you don’t necessarily need a whole lot of programming skill or or in the ideal scenario, no programming skill whatsoever to produce, well, software or applications or indeed AI. So…

Ian Bowie
yeah, I mean, I I think I would find that incredibly empowering. That if you would just be able to perhaps write down or perhaps even record or a combination of both, the parameters that you wish to set, and then the program itself would do the magic.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, absolutely. And of course, I mean, a large part of AI is, in a way, putting Lego pieces together. There are those very standardized process, so even, even just the creation of AI as a thing that could conceivably, I mean, to some extent already is automated as well.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, I mean, I mean, just out of interest, how far away do you think we are from that as a reality?

Michael Stormbom
I think to some extent that reality already exists. I mean, one of these larger, larger companies, they run tons of these automated stuff all the time. So automated data collection, automated creation of new models, automated ways of creating new models and of finding the optimal optimal parameters for this model. So there’s quite a lot of that already exists in a way. But taking that one step further, let’s say that you, you want to… you have a particular use case in mind, and that you want to create an AI for it, so the level will be that if you, you write a command “create me an AI model that” – I don’t know – “predicts” -w ell, we talked about horse races the other day, so why not – “predict the winner of of this horse race” kind of thing, “create me an AI that does that”? Possibly not as far as way, far away as one would think because we’re talking about fairly, especially sort of the more standard use cases that when there’s a known process. I think that that can be automated to some extent.

Ian Bowie
Okay. What if we make it really, really simple? I’m sure there’s an awful lot of people out there that would just like to, for example, sell something on the internet. And so let’s say somebody’s got an idea. Let’s keep it really simple. They want to sell pens on the internet, maybe they they somehow hand paint existing pens, and then they want to sell those on the internet. So they decided, okay, I sell pens. I want to know how to reach my audience. I need some kind of web shop so that I can sell them, some kind of e-commerce platform. I want to get this out on social media, but I don’t know how to. Would it be possible to have an AI system out there that could do all that for you?

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, so I mean, that’s not just about the AI but the whole system or infrastructure around it. But I mean, sure, I mean it’s in that sense a predictable process, right. Yeah. I mean, we talked… There are predictable steps that you have to take there. And which can be automated.

Ian Bowie
We talked the other day about virtual assistants. And you know, your next employee might be an algorithm. So in a way, this is just the same thing, isn’t it? Really? Yeah, these days you go to an advertising agency. Or you know, you talk to a web designer, and you tell them what you want, and what you want to do. Then you probably go and see a social media expert, and you tell them again, what you require. And they do all that for you. And charge you huge amounts of money.

Michael Stormbom
Indeed, so no, this would be more about the packaging all these myriad of smaller tasks together and I think having one system taking care of it, and I’m sure I don’t see why that wouldn’t be, wouldn’t be possible. I mean, at the end of the day, it’s all about the data.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, I mean, taking care of it for a fraction of the price. I mean, this is again, you know, I think one of the reasons that a lot of people don’t start businesses is simply because they haven’t got the funds. Or they might have the money, but they don’t, you know, want to take a risk of losing all of it just with this one idea.

Michael Stormbom
No, that’s true. And and I mean, I think the threshold, I mean, for example, for setting up your own website or setting up your own webshop, I mean, of course, the threshold has dropped tremendously over the past few years. So I don’t see any reason why that why that development wouldn’t continue, it becomes ever, ever easier to the point where you just have to have an idea and you can push a button and then it’s all there for you.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, actually, I mean, one of the other things that I was kind of looking into recently as well, we’re kind of like the barriers that exist towards AI, and perhaps getting people to use it. So for example, if you go or you can get your hands on some kind of algorithm that can create a website for you that can maybe do social media set up an e-commerce website. But there are still certain perhaps, barriers to you doing that. The list that came up for me was was for example, trust deficit. Can you actually trust this system? Will it steal your idea and give it to somebody else? What about data privacy? So I mean, for example, if you set up or it sets up an e-commerce platform for you, the last thing you then want is to be sued by lots and lots of customers because there was a data leak of their information. So you know, I mean, how do you address these issues as well?

Michael Stormbom
Well, I would think the same way you address general the trust issues in in general, so whoever is the vendor then of this system that provides this service for you, of course, the contracts have to have to reflect that. So in the case of liability, then it’s the the provider of the service that is…

Ian Bowie
Is liable. Yeah, okay.

Michael Stormbom
But of course, in terms of of course, if there were such a service provider that has this sort of like turnkey e-commerce solution that handles everything for you, and there’s an AI component, then, of course, I think a key thing there will be that, of course, of course the sort of e-commerce setup creation also needs to evolve over time. And for that you need to improve over time because of Yeah, so of course, you need access to data. So I think that’s something has to be considered as well. Of course, they probably would like to collect as much data as possible from from your particular store.

Ian Bowie
I’m sure they do. Yeah. I mean, is there not a danger that… Well, I think we saw it wit,h there’s a website called Etsy and if you know about Etsy.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, sure. Yeah. Where you can sell DIY stuff.

Ian Bowie
Yes, that’s right. Yeah. You know, if you’re a crafter and you make teddy bears or whatever, you can sell it on Etsy. And…

Michael Stormbom
Maybe there will come a time when you sell AIs on Etsy.

Ian Bowie
Well, who knows? But I mean, but the fact the fact is that I think one of the problems nowadays with with platforms like Etsy is it’s overcrowded. You know, I want to get noticed. Well, that’s right. Exactly. And it’s the same with Amazon. You know, if you become an Amazon reseller, how do you actually get noticed? So again, is there a danger that if AI gets to that level, where you can literally just say, I want you to do this for me? And it does. That means anybody can tell it to do that. Which means suddenly the marketplace is just going to explode, isn’t it with providers? And how does how does anybody get noticed?

Michael Stormbom
Well, yeah, but I mean, I think we’ve noticed that in, in many cases, if you go on Spotify, like how do you find music on there? How do you find independent artists, or how did you find this podcast? I mean, that’s the promise of no code. Not just AI, but no code programming reality you don’t you don’t necessarily need any programming skill whatsoever. You can just, you have these building blocks, and you put them together and you put in some parameters and then voila, you have a program.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, perfect for me.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I don’t think it’s quite at the level that we can do away with the programmers just yet, but I think the idea is that, of course, there are all these sort of things that are very sort of standard building blocks. And you can just sort of put them together that you don’t need to, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

Ian Bowie
You’re always going to need the programmers to make these building blocks, aren’t you? So? Yeah, so that’s fine.

Michael Stormbom
That’s the idea with with no code, really, is that you can take these building building blocks and put them together.

Ian Bowie
They’re building them for people like me.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, or, or well yes, for people who are not programmers. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, I mean, related to that. We are at least here in Finland. We’re having a bit of a lack of like programming skills and programmers. So of course, I think in a way that also drives automation there as well as okay. If we don’t have programmers, then we need to program programmers, so to speak, right? Yeah, I think so. I think that drives this a bit as well. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the same with AI, I mean, they’re pretty standard practices, standard ways of doing things, which means you can of course, create building blocks as well that you can play with.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, I mean, I think it’d be good. Yeah. You know, what one of the greatest kind of barriers to acceptance of anything is the perceived level of difficulty to understand it. So the more accessible you can make AI, the more easily and more ready people will be to accept it.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I suppose. I mean, it used it used to be the case you need to have a pretty, pretty deep understanding of how these things work, which is not necessarily the case anymore. The there are, of course, pitfalls. I mean, we’ve been talking about, for example, bias in data and understanding how that bias arises and the implications of that.

Ian Bowie
Well, I mean, you know, I don’t think I’m unusual in saying that I don’t necessarily want to know how things work. I just want them to work. You know, I have got no interest in knowing how a computer works. Now I know I want to be able to use it. I know the power of computer and what it can do for me. So of course you know I want to use one. Absolutely. And certain software programs, etc. But I’m not interested in the coding behind them. What makes them work?

Michael Stormbom
No, but I mean, most of us in the IT world we don’t work in a binary binary level either. With these things. There’s of course all these levels of abstraction but I would say that there’s still these things, like bias, for example, and what makes an algorithm work and another one why another one not and so I think those sort of things, but certainly I do think that’s where like higher level of abstractions will, they’re coming there as well for AI for sure. Yeah, but I mean, coming

Ian Bowie
For somebody like me, I don’t want anything to be abstract. You know, I wanted to be clear, and understandable. So if I want something to do something for me, I just want it to do it. I don’t care how it does it.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, but let’s take, well, we’ve spoken about computer vision before on this on this podcast. So why not? I mean, there’s certainly those applications and web apps that that use these computer vision algorithms, but then all you need to do is to provide the images that it needs to recognize and then, and that’s it, so you don’t you don’t have to do any programming. You just need to provide it with the images they’re supposed to recognize.

Ian Bowie
So you import the images. Yeah.

Michael Stormbom
And it becomes more about making sure, having the right data for for your particular use case in a way.

Ian Bowie
Is it any other any sort of off the shelf algorithms that you can buy? To then use and you’ve got an idea of what the parameters are that you need to put in. So can you just buy the algorithm that you need, and then start typing in?

Michael Stormbom
We’re not quite at the level where you could sort of, just in natural language, right that, “hey, create me a model that does this”, not quite at that level, although that is conceivably also possible. So not quite at that level. But I just, I mean, that’s definitely one case where it’s all about the data.

Ian Bowie
You see this is what I’m thinking that it’s still too complicated. For normal people, average people who don’t understand…

Michael Stormbom
There’s nothing in that sense just yet anyway completely off the shelf.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking that an off the shelf program and all you do is input the parameters. Maybe even just tell it, like we discussed earlier.

Michael Stormbom
I think we’ve been speaking about this before as well, and sort of access to data is a key. Yeah, equal access to AI. So I think so one thing is of course the computing and processing power, but the other thing is the data.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, so I think Google has probably harvested everything that’s ever been put on the internet.

Michael Stormbom
Oh, yes. I mean, everything passes through their search engine for sure. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. So basically, I mean, you know, you’ve talked about harvesting huge amounts of data. I mean, theoretically, Google has it all.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, and of course, Facebook, all the social media. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
No but it means that these companies have basically got almost all the knowledge that exists. already.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, all the knowledge of the known universe so to speak. Yeah, for sure.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. So I mean, do they not own the future? You know, they have all that knowledge at their disposal. It’s far more than anybody else’s got. So I mean, you know, that’s an interesting question. You’ve got little people trying to develop smaller projects. What chances are they actually got of seeing those come to fruition when you’ve got these behemoths? Or do you just get eaten.

Michael Stormbom
Or in the best of circumstances, you’ll get your stuff sold to them.

Ian Bowie
Right. But I mean, you know, I heard about Zuckerberg talking about his metaverse. Are we heading to a world that is actually eventually controlled? Bases now the dystopian reality, isn’t it controlled by maybe three large data driven companies?

Michael Stormbom
I think there’s a definite risk of that for sure.

Ian Bowie
I mean, I know the European Union with their GDPR but I think it’s miniscule in comparison to these.

Michael Stormbom
I’m not going to bet against the European Union in that sense, because it’s a big, it’s a big market with lots of users unfairly,

Ian Bowie
Could be manipulated.

Michael Stormbom
Could be manipulated. And of course, many… There’s attempted manipulation all the time for sure. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
We again, we seem to come back to this idea of heading into a very dystopian future. It’s not, it’s not looking bright bright at all.

Michael Stormbom
Because I mean, we talked in a previous episode about should should we teach our kids programming in schools. So I think there’s a connection there as well. So of course, if we are able to get to a point where you don’t actually have to do a whole lot of programming, you’re able to actually work with this sort of no code or low code setup so as well. I’m getting towards some sort of point here. I think, maybe, or maybe not. But…

Ian Bowie
You can turn schoolchildren into the next generation of entrepreneurs by giving them skills to use the building blocks created by programmers to create something useful for themselves.

Michael Stormbom
Indeed, so I mean and I think, and as we talked before, I think also the learning to think algorithmically, I suppose I think that’s also more so important than any particular programming language, I think.

Ian Bowie
That’s not going to work for everybody is it?

Michael Stormbom
No, it isn’t.

Ian Bowie
But teaching kids if you can get to a stage where there is no coding needed, and it is just, you know, like you saying building blocks, teaching kids how to build with those blocks, I think will be a very, very powerful and very useful lesson for them.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. And I mean, a way to unleash your creativity as well. If you didn’t… I played playing with Legos. Okay. Now the Lego bricks are just pieces of code in a way.

Ian Bowie
Yes. Perfect. You can make it visual as well.

Michael Stormbom
That’s the thing as well. Having it being very visual the way you build them. I think that’s the making… that’s the distinction between when you’re just programming yourself and just using a box to definitely. You could take it one step further, further, and so you have Lego bricks in each like physical tangible, Lego bricks, and they represent a piece of code and you build them together in the real world and then and then it becomes a program.

Ian Bowie
Yes.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai