For all the recent achievements in deep tech and artificial intelligence (AI), there is nevertheless leeway for fresh thinking and the exchange of new ideas.
The first round table discussion at the 2019 Global Corporate Venturing Symposium was moderated by Neil Foster, partner for corporate M&A and private equity at international law firm Baker Botts, and it explored the state of the AI and frontier tech space with perspectives from both the investment and inventor’s side of the equation.
Bindi Karia, who is finishing up her term advising the European Union’s European Innovation Council having worked in corporate venture capital for computing software publisher Microsoft, was joined by Stuart Chapman, chief operating officer for venture capital firm Draper Esprit, and Bruno Maissonier, CEO of AI technology developer AI Brain.
Maisonnier spoke of the need for fresh impetus in the AI segment in order to move into a more contextual dynamic beyond simply relying on large quantities of existing data, adding: “Everyone, to attract customers [for AI and robotics], has to figure out the way to increase the trust of everyone.
Although there has been a good deal of innovation in robotics, a robot is still chiefly a responsive form of technology, Maisonnier said. It needs to be programmed and so will not function if a user does anything unexpected. Making it more intelligent needs to be a priority.
With her experience across multiple spheres of business and innovation, Karia remarked on the need to effectively support inventors of deep technologies without alienating and constraining them with needless formalities.
“All this form filling is too much for the founder, what they want is to build the technology, so you need to make it easy,” she said. “Interview the founders rather than making them go through this ridiculous tick-box process.”
As a veteran of frontier technology-led venture capital, Stuart Chapman spoke about the changes that have taken place over the past couple of decades.
“I started in 1992,” he said. “When I talk about new frontiers and artificial intelligence, we used to call it electronics, semiconductors and technology. If there was ever a category for it, it should have been called ‘other’.
“If you were a baseball player and you get the ball in on field three times out of 10, and then you go into the Hall of Fame, that [situation is like] venture capital.
“Whereas if you were to tell your boss you are going to screw up 70% of times and you’re one of the biggest employees in the company because you have been successful, that does not work very well. You need to be in a team and in an environment that understands the risk of these investments.”