AI: Is it the dose that makes the poison?

Ecosystem Espresso Edition #6 :

Buongiorno! Un Espresso per favore!

1| Thank you for 534 Subscribers.

Highly appreciated. Please keep sharing with friends, colleagues, former peers and people that could benefit. Please help us crack 1.000! Together.

2| AI - great benefits that solve problems we have

When you go through your social media feed many people claim how you can make money leveraging AI. This is pretty awesome, if it worked. What it show how low barriers to use are. It is all very simple to tinker around with it and create value. See one example for innovators.

3| AI - great threat creating problems we never had before

When you watch the video below - if it was not fake - you start understanding why real experts and geniuses demand a 6 month slow down. See here some highlights.

4| Ecosystem play will need AI

Complex systems require insight generation, personalisation and innovation leveraging AI. Everything else would be less targeted, too slow and just too complex.

2| AI - great benefits that solve problems we have

AI ready-steady-go!

This is a great example of a toolbox put together with AI tools. Now if you look under the hood, you will see it is pretty basic. Some filters and off you go.

Have a look and you will go: "that is a future scenario writer?!

When will AI tools like that work? Well, as usual they help solve a problem and you must have some reputation or brand fit or a good #PLG to get traffic and growth loops, so you become the prime option. BoardofInnovation and Philippics team have always been putting together simple tools that make innovators lives easier. Their brand and business model sits in the innovation ecosystem. Hence, this is a logic next step.

I am just working on a private project, I am invested to for 10 years, also on an application as simple as that. And it really low hanging fruit. The challenge is more the growth engine than actually putting it together. I will share soon...

AI Index Report - mixed bag

Go through the above 10 points yourselves please.

Here a few of my own takes:

Business > Science > Regulatory.

A core challenge in the context of exponential tech. Those who embrace AI pull ahead. However, given Martechs Law, the gap between tech and organizations and regulatory is widening. Beyond that between where the top businesses already are vs. where we think as human race should be. In the report you will find China's leadership on science and papers.

AI winners create more value.

Those who adopt it rip benefits in cost reduction and revenue growth. This will most likely lead to a new productivity wave - white collars will be affected this time.

Looking at the different applications, especially also image-driven methodologies a lot of progress and improvement of quality, safety and security can be achieved. This will lead to a whole new set of products and services, think for example traffic or think health.

Speed of progress with Professor AI.

Science and R&D needs the support of AI as humans are not able to create connections and simulations for iterative improvements with such a speed. The teams that will leverage AI will be able to innovate in very new fields.

New job opportunities will follow!

What is really amazing - the speed of overtaking human skills (graph above).

Old jobs will be endangered but also enriched. Human-Machine interfaces will make work easier. New jobs will be created. So, pretty much the pattern we are used to with US leading. However in AI job postings not falling off a cliff either (see below).

Faster thank you think!

What are you personally proud of in the last 3 years?! For example as retailer: you opened 5-10 new outlets, relaunched the in-store concept? For example as food producer: 4-5 new products and the obvious lemon variant?!

Look below what has happened to training time for different AI tasks. I am not trying to diminish what we are all doing. It should just point out, that maybe only improving what we always have been busy with will continue, but it will not be enough as progress is in turbo mode!

With all these efforts also environmental impact is significant. On the other hand it can contribute in making leaps forward in #ESG

The sector split of job postings in the US is pretty interesting: When you are in Retail, Utilities, Transportation or Oil given the challenges you are facing ("The Great Transition") there will be a race for talent even more than in other sectors. Please check also the acceleration on your countries vs. average recruitment efforts in the report.

The relative AI skill penetration is fascinating. Great to see #germany again in top 3 position, like often before in early stages, but not so often in scaling successfully. The relative AI skill penetration rate can be understood as the sum of the penetration of each AI skill across occupations in a given country or region, divided by the global average across the same occupation. 

History repeating in commercialization?!

Private investment has grown significantly for M&A and startups. Again, as we already know, USA is leading, Germany is small in comparison. As before the investment levels in Israel are ahead. Consequently, the number of newly funded companies is "only" 41 vs. 73 in Israel.

At least #Europe is still ahead of #China in second position. #USA is almost 2x of Europe in new companies in AI. See for yourselves the split by sector or field. Not surprisingly Data, Fintech, Health, AV are leading.

Real use cases!

The main applications in business are helping to improve service operations and new products. Following closely customer segmentation and analytics which is fueling automation and personalization, which creates value:

The topic is rich. The topic will make rich AND poor...

3| AI - great threat creating problems we never had before

Watch this video. I assume it is not fake, as the people still appear real and we could read about the letter that Steve Wozniak , @Yuval Noah Harari or Elon Musk have issued requesting a slow down in mass AI deployment.

Lay back - relax AND watch it - all of it:

Source: Center for Humane Technology

Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin discuss how existing A.I. capabilities already pose catastrophic risks to a functional society, how A.I. companies are caught in a race to deploy as quickly as possible without adequate safety measures, and what it would mean to upgrade our institutions to a post-A.I. world.

This presentation is from a private gathering in San Francisco on March 9th with leading technologists and decision-makers with the ability to influence the future of large-language model A.I.s. This presentation was given before the launch of GPT-4.

We encourage viewers to consider calling their political representatives to advocate for holding hearings on AI risk and creating adequate guardrails.

Worth watching - worth sharing - worth acting

It is amazing that "only" 91K views occurred so far.

"50% of AI-researches believe there is a 10% or greater chance that humans go extinct from our inability to control AI..."

Now, even if this was all fake and a strategist like myself was caught...it is still worthwhile to think about this and act. Am I consequent, no not really. I experiment with a commercial product and I use AI daily. However, both can happen, increase pressure to work on fundamentals like regulation and gaining first hand experience for simple applications.

Two mega trends - two gambles?

The danger comes more from the fact that everything seems irreversible, everything is language driven, everything grows double exponential. Pandora's box?

Well, assuming a similar unclear tipping point scenario is already unfolding with the climate crises, then this adds another dimension. While the good news is that all enterprise strategy decks, investor reports feature both front and center, in reality tech progress is bigger than change (see beginning of this Espresso). I remain positive (in German we say "Zweckoptimismus")

"Anything that is imaginable - it is only a question of time and money"

4| Ecosystem play will need AI

Looking at the main outcomes of #AI Implementation then it is obvious that #ecosystem play needs AI to facilitate guiding, operating and innovating in this complex business and operating model.

34% see improved collaboration across functions and organizations at position 2 and lower cost (37%) at position 1.

After building ecosystems is before innovating in ecosystems.

The insight generation, making those findings, patterns available structurally guided by #purpose, #ambition, #strategicdestination and a bit of #serindipity is the fuel of better value created. Not only $ and €, but also intended outcomes we need for our humanity-level crises.

Not to be underestimated is better decision making based on transparency and data. So people can focus on enjoying also collaboration with less frictions.

Barriers and Challenges - the usual suspects.

Please review the graph below: Are we surprised here? I am not.

Dear leaders, it is another thing on your plates. It will not go away. You should ask you board to get more support and readiness on exponential tech and business model innovation. Too often I perceive C-Level only delivering what the board expects. In a partnership you should ask for the environment that you need. Have you ever asked? Assessed boards´s readiness?!

Dear shareholders. If your #CEO tenures are so short and you only optimize for the quarter, then you already know what this means for your investment. If you are more dealers in mindset, it does not matter. If you care however about your businesses and the people there, you are well advised working on a proper framework on all levels, like the best businesses do.

What those are, well become a subscriber of the #EcosystemEspresso. Then you know.

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Happy Weekend! And please share what the video has done to your perspective on #AI!