The D=SIGN Digital Signage Conference kicked off yesterday morning with an informative session entitled “AI Primer for Digital Signage.” Hosted by Jim Nista, creative director for Nista Digital Content, the class covered artificial intelligence basics before heading into its expanding uses in digital signage.
To exemplify what AI is, Nista referred to Nigel Richards, a New Zealand man who memorized every word in the French Scrabble dictionary and won the French Scrabble Championship even though he could not speak French. Did he know what any of the words meant? No, but he knew they existed, and that is pretty much AI in a nutshell—it doesn’t know the meaning of the words it uses, but it knows the words.
['Intelligence' Can Be Artificially Overrated]
It is getting better and better, and Nista uses the current wave of AI tools, including Open AI’s ChatGPT, Adobe Firefly, and Midjourney, every day.
He warns that there are still plenty of things that can go wrong with AI and that, right now, its accuracy is around a B+ but improving. He also recommends to not subscribe to all the hype around AI and to slow down and investigate how it can enhance your business and workflow.
Some of the many ways AI can assist a digital signage program include real-time-generated personalized content, playlist management, interactive kiosk design, and HTML templates for lobby directories. He also described a QSR service where AI will monitor inventory and take an item off the menu if one of its key ingredients runs out.
Overall, Nista is optimistic about our AI future, explaining that it does not take away jobs, but provides users with a very smart virtual assistant. He also believes that better integration will be coming soon.
He ended the presentation with an AI-generated image of a six-fingered hand—AI has a hard time with hands—and five reminders to keep in mind when using it:
1. There are bad actors.
2. Double-check everything.
3. Use the sniff test.
4. Demand proof
5. Facts can be inconvenient.
He also urged the crowd to be vigilant, as people are using AI as an excuse to hide the truth.
