Feb 26, 2024 | AI, Governance
The astonishing ability of the new AI tools to increase productivity relies on being able to ‘learn’ by mining pools of data, then detecting and projecting responses based on statistical outcomes of that mining.
The next step, Generative AI, Generative Artificial Intelligence, is the point at which the artificial systems can reason, much as we do. This happens by making ‘neurological’ connections between apparently disconnected data, depth of domain knowledge and experience, breadth of more general knowledge that provides a ‘thinking canvas’ and context. These add up to instinctive responses we sometimes describe as pure ‘gut feel’.
There is however, a middle point.
‘Deep mind’ is a research unit now owned by Google. Their models evolved as AlphaGo and subsequently AlphaZero. These models cracked the barrier that seemed uncrackable, the ‘4-minute mile’ of computing. By beating the best humans at the complex game of Go, it demonstrated the ability of an algorithm to replicate in some form, the neural networks we have in our brains. In short, it can learn from its own experience, not reliant on outside data.
Crossing this Rubicon opens whole new territories to be explored.
It is in effect a ‘rolling probability’ calculation, each step using an estimation of the outcome of the previous calculation to deliver an adjusted outcome, in an ongoing process.
This is how we learn: from our experience.
As a kid I remember my younger cousin crawling towards a campfire surrounded by rocks. The immediate response of most was to grab him to prevent him getting burnt. However, my aunt stopped us, pointing out he would not be badly hurt by the mildly heated rocks surrounding the fire. However, when he touched a heated rock, it would create a memory-response loop that connected the fire to a modest hurt, thus ensuring he would automatically adjust his behaviour, and not go near another fire.
That incident stuck in my memory, and it reflects the way these AI tools are evolving rapidly towards ‘thinking’.
The dystopian view is that such developments over a few decades will see the machines take over. I prefer to think that we humans will find a way, as we always have, to overcome such threats. I guess my great grandchildren might know the right answer.
The header was created with help from DALL-E in about 3 minutes using a short series of prompts.
E&OE: A few hours after posting this post, I stumbled across this post on Medium that might bring forward the passing of the Turing test by a machine back into my lifetime. It records the evolution and current state of Googles 1.5 Pro tool, claiming it is to Current ChatGPT4 what a Model T is to a Ferrari.
The pace of change is astonishing, logarithmic, which makes it hard to comprehend by normal people..
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Feb 23, 2024 | Communication, Marketing
Blog posts live on, as does anything posted to the net.
Sometimes they come back to bite us, sometimes they merge from a long hibernation to live again.
Last thing you want is for that Facebook photo from that wild party at university to emerge a decade later when interviewing for that ‘ideal job’.
On the other hand, a simple idea in hibernation for a decade can suddenly wake up and add new value. For someone, its time has come!
It happened yesterday.
A simple blog post from 14 years ago that has hibernated without being disturbed for most of those 14 years woke up yesterday, and went ‘ballistic’.
(Ballistic is a relative term, but in the context of the billions of posts out there, and the usual readership numbers of StrategyAudit, it was ballistic)
Whoever you are that stumbled across this old post, and obviously shared it to your networks, thanks, and I hope you are able to leverage the idea to your great benefit.
Feb 21, 2024 | AI, Change, Governance, Strategy
Often, I hear the term ‘Digital Strategy’ used as if it were an end result, some discrete set of activities to be completed.
To my mind, this is a misuse of the term.
As it is usually used, ‘Digital’ is all about the devices, the technology, whereas the value in digital is elsewhere. It is in the ability to get things done, differently, more quickly, efficiently, and in a distributed manner by those best able to complete the activity with the minimum of organisational friction.
It is about the business models enabled, the understanding of customers, ability to visualise the unseen, and communicate it clearly. It is not about the RFID tags, VR, and all the other enablers of digital, it is the outcomes that count.
Your strategy may be enabled by digital, but you do not need a digital strategy any more than you need a telephone strategy. They are both just tools to be leveraged.
Management of these changes is confronting, there is not a lot of precedent to go by. This is particularly the case now following the explosion of AI onto the scene. There is a lot of advice around, often delivered by those with a stake in selling you another product or service. However, it seems to me that there are a few simple parameters worth considering.
Functional Silo thinking is poison. The communication enabled by digital is inherently cross functional, better reflecting the way customers and suppliers see us and want to interact. Functional silos have little to do with optimised outcomes anymore. They have outlived their purpose and value.
One step at a time. While the pace of change is getting faster, and the pressure to keep up increasing, we all know what happens when we try and run down a hill really fast, we end up arse over tit. Matching the speed of change to the pace that your enterprise can absorb the change is pretty sensible. Of course, if you are the slowest in the competing pack, it may be better to get out while you can.
Digital is a team game. Hand balling digital responsibility to the IT people is a mistake. You will end up getting what they think you need, which is rarely what you really need. The real challenge is engagement of people not really focussed on digital. The primary example is in the space of marketing automation. Suddenly it exploded, way beyond the capabilities and experience of most marketing people, who are nevertheless now investing more in tech than the IT people. It is essential that the right capabilities are built in the right places. Finally, everyone affected, which is everyone, needs to be in on the secret, with all the options, challenges, and opportunities transparent. The unknown is the father of all sorts of ugly children.
Think long term. Digital transformations are not just about which software you will install to automate a process. Is more about what the business may look like in 5, 10 years, and what steps do you need to take over that time to reman relevant. Technology, much of which may not yet be available, will play a vital role in that evolution, but they remain tools of the evolution, rather than the main game.
Header credit: My thanks to Tom Gauld in New Scientist.
Feb 19, 2024 | Uncategorized
AI can put words in the mouth of any public figure and make it virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. It can create pictures that even experts cannot pick as digital facsimiles.
How can we trust anything we see or hear?
To date we have been able to pick the fakes by a range of tiny details. Spelling mistakes, poor grammar, or inconsistent details in a ‘photo’, but those days are now gone.
What will they be replaced by?
Trust?
How do you build trust on a base of quicksand?
Slowly. Carefully. Piece by piece. Showing up routinely and being consistent in the messaging by whatever means those messages are delivered. Always being both totally transparent and sometimes painfully honest, and always humble.
Beware, the blaring trumpet of confirmation bias will be blasting our senses from here on. Somehow, we must build an immunity and antidote, or we will be lost as a cohesive community.
The header of this post is the AI generated ‘photo’ by Boris Eldagsen that won the creative category at the Sony World Photography Awards in 2023.
While it was ‘early days’ in the public life of AI, the fact that experts failed to pick the ‘fake’ is disturbing. How are so called average people expected to be able to pick between the real speeches, transcripts, and photos of public figures when the experts make massive blues like this?
The experts disagree. Who knew?
AGI, or ‘Artificial General Intelligence’ is the point at which the magic of circuits has the ability to learn and respond to something for which it has not been taught. In short, it can think. It is a field of science that is being funded in the billions, weekly, and is a huge step forward from where we are now, with what is becoming ‘normal’ AI.
AGI pundits think AGI by 2030 is not just achievable, but a lay down misère, while the other camp think ‘probably never’.
Whichever camp emerges the winner, AI is with us, and is not going anywhere, except further into the corners of our lives.
Get used to it!
Feb 5, 2024 | Change, Leadership, Strategy
‘Going digital’ sounds easy.
Sadly, it is not.
Almost every company I visit or work with needs, to one degree or another to be aggressively moving down the path towards ‘digitisation’.
Just what does ‘digitisation’ mean?
For most of my clients it means automating some or all of the existing processes driven by bits of unconnected software and spreadsheets, liberally connected by people handing things over.
It is a mess, and there is not one, or even a suite of digital measures that will address the whole challenge, despite what the software vendors sprout.
The world is digitising at an accelerating rate, so keeping up is not only a competitive imperative, it is a strategic necessity. Never more than now as ChatGPT burst onto the scene, compressing everything, and making the ‘digitisation’ drive one of life and death.
On of my former clients is a printing business, an SME with deep capabilities in all things ‘printing’ that enabled the company to be very successful, in the past. Their capabilities are terrific, cutting edge, if we were still in 1999.
If I use them as a metaphor for most I work with, there is a consistent pattern.
- They did not see Digitisation as an investment in the future, rather it is seen as an expense.
- There was no consideration of the application of digital to their product offerings, beyond the digital printing machines, and services beyond those that made them successful 20 years ago.
- Their business model, beyond what is demanded by the two biggest customers, who between them deliver 34% of revenue, has not changed.
- They have not considered digitisation of operational processes, beyond a 25-year-old ERP system. The system has not been adequately updated, and they only use a portion of the existing capability.
- They have not modified their organisational and operational culture to meet the changed expectations of their customers, and the market.
No digitisation effort can succeed without the support of an operating culture that encourages ongoing change. Organisational processes can be modified by decree, but they will not stick. It takes everyone in the boat to be pulling in the same direction, in unison to make progress. This takes leadership, and a willingness to be both vulnerable internally, and a strong ability to absorb the stuff from outside. The leadership group must ‘get out of the building’. Not to smell the roses, but to see the lie of the land, and understand where the opportunities and challenges are hiding.
Coming to this point, where there is a recognition that change is no longer a choice, is where you are given one point out of a possible 10. Now you need to do something about it all to have a shot at the following 9 points. A daunting prospect for most.
The process has 5 easy in principle steps:
- Map the existing operational processes so you know what to change, and where the gaps/opportunities are hiding..
- Map and change the mindset of the people, so you understand the extent of the challenge.
- Take small and incremental steps along a path that all understand leads to a digital future, which means that a lot of collaborative planning has been done.
- Ensure that there are the necessary opportunities for all stakeholders, but particularly employees to grow and change with you. Those that choose not to, also choose to work elsewhere. There are no free rides.
- Ensure the resources of time and money are allocated uncompromisingly to the long-term outcomes. It is just too easy to put aside something that is important but not urgent, for something that may seem to be urgent, but is not important to the transformational effort.
As noted, since the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022, the time before the liquidator comes around for those who choose not to change has compressed radically.
Most, if not all SME’s beyond the digital start-ups now cropping up like mushrooms after rain, will need outside expertise.
Consider that help to be an investment in survival, not a cost.
Header cartoon credit: Tom Fishburne at Marketoonist.com
