Nick McDonald, Account Director at Fujitsu, takes a closer look at the revolutionary technology and says it should not be feared if used in the right way. 

The topic of AI is dominating conversations across the industry right now.

Businesses understand that it can have a seismic impact on all aspects of their operations, from internal processes and procedures to the solutions, tools and services they provide to customers.

Of course, that impact can be both positive and negative, and while there has been a lot of hype around the potential of AI concerns have been raised, too.

This has left many organisations – and, indeed, the global markets – a little nervous about AI and unsure how they should approach the technology.

It’s important to understand there are different types of artificial intelligence, with each type having its own use cases. This includes but is not limited to:

• Narrow AI
• General AI
• Super AI
• Reactive machines
• Limited memory
• Theory of mind
• Self aware

The category of AI that most are interested in is Narrow AI and in particular, the Generative AI that sits within this category of artificial intelligence.

But what do we actually mean by Generative AI?

Generative AI – a simple definition:

Generative AI can create new data including texts, images, videos and more. It does this by learning the structure and patterns of its training data to generate new ideas with similar characteristics.

It can be training to understand human language, programming languages, art, chemistry, biology, law and countless other complex subjects.

Large AI models power Generative AI. Often referred to as foundation models, they can perform a wide variety of tasks including summarization, classification and answering queries.

This makes it ideal for things like chatbots, creating media assets, design and product development.

ChatGPT catapulted Generative AI into the mainstream:

ChatGPT is the most well-known example of how Generative AI can be used.

Its rise has been nothing short of meteoric, reaching 100 million users in just two months (Facebook took 54 months to reach the same milestone).

ChatGPT is essentially a chatbot that runs on the foundation of large language models (LLMs), trained on vast amounts of data to produce texts that humans can understand.

Users ask a question and ChatGPT breaks down the query into smaller components to analyse their meaning and to determine what the user is really asking it to do.

It then returns words and sentences it predicts will base answer the query, based on the data it has been trained on.

Generative AI – the risks:

While ChatGPT may seem like a useful tool that, if nothing else, is great fun to use, it also highlights some of the concerns surrounding Generative AI.

This includes the accuracy of the outputs being generated, inconsistent output, bias, a lack of explainability and even threats to security, privacy and intellectual property.

There’s a growing number of examples of people using tools like ChatGPT and finding themselves in hot water but one of my favourites is that of a lawyer who used it to search for legal precedents in a case they were working on.

The lawyer typed their query into ChatGPT – thankfully being smart enough to not include specific information about the case – and it returned information showing that there were legal precedents.

They then instructed ChatGPT to compile the information in a document to submit to the court.

The issue was that the information ChatGPT returned was false, something the judge picked up on after reading the document submitted by the lawyer and undertaking their own research into the legal precedents presented.

When the judge was unable to find any such cases, they put this to the lawyer who came clean about using ChatGPT to search for legal precedents, but then not checking what it returned.

The lawyer was ultimately struck off – the best possible result because had they included information about the case in their ChatGPT search, they would have faced a lengthy prison sentence for breaching confidentially.

This is because ChatGPT is a public service that consumes information as well as shares it.

Don’t fear Generative AI:

But this shouldn’t stop organisations from embracing the power of Generative AI and the clear benefits it can bring to their operations.

From streamlining game development to improving customer support, there are many ways online gambling businesses can harness its potential to drive growth.

The way we have gone about this is to create a chatbot similar to ChatGPT that organisations can use with confidence. It works similarly to ChatGPT but instead of using publicly available data, it sits on top of the company’s data warehouse.

This allows teams and employees to ask questions and queries and have answers generated based on the proprietary data that foundation models have been fed on.

This data can be siloed within the warehouse, with individuals and teams given specific levels of access – the marketing team doesn’t need to be able to ask questions of the same data sets as the CFO and CEO, for example.

The use cases for a Private GPT are endless but include being able to ask any question, chat with company data, find new answers and insights, foster deeper collaboration, jointly generate insight and evaluate results and decision support systems.

Of course, this is just one way that Generative AI can be used but demonstrates how its capabilities can be harnessed safely and without any negative repercussions.

But as the industry gets to grips with the technology, many more will emerge and undoubtedly change the game for all stakeholders.

The Merkur Group has welcomed Mr. Christian Reinhard as the new Board Member for Technology and Development. Reinhard, a 50-year-old computer science graduate, succeeds Werner Kurt Schroer, who resigned from his position on the Board for health reasons after almost 19 years of successful service, but will continue to be available to the Group as an advisor.

“We would like to thank Mr. Schroer for the extraordinarily successful years we have spent together. At the same time, we are delighted to welcome Mr. Reinhard to the board of directors. By appointing Mr. Reinhard as the board member responsible for technology and development, we are ensuring continuity in the area of development that is so important for the group of companies, while also creating space for fresh ideas. We wish Mr. Reinhard every success in his new role and always the necessary bit of luck,” said company founder and board spokesman Paul Gauselmann.

Christian Reinhard has over 20 years of experience in the series development of automotive electronics. In his career to date, he has developed a wide range of technologies, including navigation systems, cluster instruments, driver assistance systems and vehicle networking systems, which are now installed in numerous vehicles worldwide.

In addition to his technical expertise, Reinhard has more than 15 years of experience in managing and structuring internationally distributed development teams, such as those in the Merkur Group. Most recently, he was responsible for a team of 3500 developers and played a key role in the development and release of safety-critical systems that, like the vending machine industry, are subject to strict regulatory requirements.

Christian Reinhard said: “After dedicating my 23-year career to developing high-quality mobility experiences, I am looking forward to a new challenge in a dynamic and creative environment. I am particularly fascinated by the gaming industry because of the collaboration between a wide variety of disciplines – art, design, mathematics, programming, data security and electronics development – and the opportunity to create unforgettable moments of entertainment and joy in the game.”

Safer gambling organisations from throughout the world are being invited to apply to become Clarion Gaming’s official charity partner for 2024/25.

The successful charity will benefit from unprecedented levels of interest in the Clarion Gaming brands with the 2025 editions of ICE (20th – 22nd January) and iGB Affiliate (20th – 23rd January) making the historic move to the Fira Gran Via Barcelona and iGB L!VE taking place at ExCeL London (1st– 4th July).

Interested organisations, who will benefit from unrivalled branding and networking opportunities at three of gambling’s most dynamic live events are being asked to provide an overview of how they would deploy the partnership to help address specific challenges together with their mission and vision for the future.

Clarion Gaming has set a deadline of 30th September for the receipt of applications with the partnership becoming effective in October and running through to 1st August 2025.

Stuart Hunter, Managing Director, Clarion Gaming said: “I’m extremely proud of the fact that Clarion Gaming was the first expo organiser to introduce  an annual charity partner program, an initiative which followed our ground-breaking incorporation of a show floor feature exclusively for safer gambling. The Consumer Protection Zone which launched at ICE 2018 has grown and evolved year-on-year.

“In keeping with the very latest thinking on safer gambling the concept has been rebranded as the Sustainable Gambling Zone and will have a high profile presence at both ICE Barcelona and iGB L!VE London.”

He added: “The partnership with Clarion Gaming will see the successful charity confirmed as an ICE Ambassador, receive widespread  branding at the 2025 editions of ICE, iGB Affiliate London and iGB L!VE, be part of the official opening ceremonies for each event, receive recognition in Show Guides and on the dedicated event websites, attend as guests at the many VIP networking events, have fundraising visibility including an advertising presence in the ICE Show Daily newspaper and profiling in our extensive pre-show PR and comms campaigns.”

Organisations wishing to apply to become the third Clarion Gaming Charity Partner following in the footsteps of YGAM and the International Center For Responsible Gaming  should visit icegaming.com/