Around a decade ago, as AI gained renewed attention, one of the first areas to receive overinflated focus were business process automation and desktop automation tools that aimed to automate repetitive user interface interactions. These tools, known as Robotic Process Automation (RPA), started as humble tools for automating repetitive user interface interactions, like keyboard and mouse actions. Over time however, RPA became over-hyped, capitalizing on market confusion about AI and misconceptions about robotic intelligence. Of course, robotic operations do not imply any sort of intelligence. Indeed, factory robots have been performing repetitive, automation tasks for over half a century, without utilizing any sort of intelligence or AI system. For sure, the goals of automation and intelligence aren’t the same. Automation is all about predictable repetition of tasks to gain efficiency and perform so-called “3 K’s / 4 D’s” tasks that are otherwise dull, dirty, demeaning, and dear (expensive). Intelligence, on the other hand, is all about variability, adaptability, and probabilistic versus deterministic operation. You use intelligence when you can’t have guaranteed repeatability in inputs and outputs. Whereas you use automation when you can and should have guaranteed repeatability. While RPA tools didn’t necessarily promise the capabilities we can now clearly realize in generative AI solutions, the market viewed them as a “gateway” tool to more intelligent capabilities. In part because adding AI capabilities to these otherwise unintelligent tools is becoming easier every day. Organizations are coming to depend on automation tools to increase efficiency but want to avoid the headaches of setting up and managing these tools.
Full opinion : Evolving To Truly Adaptive And Intelligent Automation.
