Most organizations today strive to be agile, to adapt to new
opportunities and threats, and become disproportionately successful with finite
resources. We live in amazing times, but there is no entitlement in a
VUCA world.
Every organization must
overcome internal friction and disorder
make decisions in the face of imperfect information about the changing nature of the marketplace and competitive landscape
be creative on the what and how while fulfilling the why
focus resources for maximum effectiveness
manage the tempo of operations
develop and leverage talent and creativity
I can point you to many decent business books on these topics. The absolute best 100 pages on these topics, however, is Warfighting. This is the US Marine manual on maneuver warfare. It has great depth and uses simple language. It fulfills Strunk & White’s dictum, “Omit needless words.” It’s a book you can go back to many times for fresh insights. Many pundits recommend Sun Tzu’s famous (and excellent) Art of War for strategy, but western business management is better served by the concepts in Warfighting.
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are
the easiest person to fool.” — Richard P. Feynman
Don’t be fooled by the hype and sloppy language about Artificial
Intelligence. The technology advances exponentially, but human nature
remains unchanged. Living wisely requires clear thinking about what AI
is, and is not.
The key ideas in one paragraph
“AI” today is all Artificial and no Intelligence. A true AI would
have consciousness and self-awareness, and today’s tools have neither.
Even the most sophisticated “AI” tools today are analogous to viruses – they
aren’t alive and are completely dependent on the machinery built by others to
work. The belief that a Singularity (a future combination of digital systems
becomes independently intelligent) is coming relies on faith without evidence
from physics or math. Consciousness does not spontaneously arise from
parts. The digital tools we’re creating are increasingly useful, and
there is great promise for improved human living by expanding our digital
services. All tools humans have developed could be used for good and for
evil. The existential danger of digital tools exists not because of a
“Skynet” super-intelligence, but from the fallible humans creating and
controlling algorithms and data.
Let’s unpack these ideas.
“AI” is all Artificial and no Intelligence
Exciting announcements about AI advances come frequently now. Siri is a
voice interface which can answer your questions. AlphaGo defeats the best
human Go players. The Google assistant can make appointments for
you. Deep learning models can interpret X-rays better than human
radiologists and make better medical diagnostics than experienced doctors,
tapping into knowledge from thousands of medical research papers.
Multiple companies have engineered autonomously driven vehicles (John Deere
tractors have had self-driving capabilities since the 1990’s). There are
digital tools which can create music, write sports stories for newspapers and
web sites, and make recommendations on what you should buy. These digital
tools deliver increasingly sophisticated results and iteratively improve as
designers access more data and better prediction models.
All these are amazing and useful, but none of them are intelligent. They
aren’t self-aware. They don’t understand anything. They are not
conscious. They are clever algorithms executing on data, based on their
designer’s intentions. They can “appear” to be acting intelligently, but
they only reflect the intelligence of their designers.
It’s important not to confuse “analyzing a problem MUCH faster than a
human” and “generating new information from existing information” with
intelligence. The Deep Blue chess software[1][2][3] which defeated Gary
Kasparov in 1996 could analyze millions of sequences of moves in seconds but
didn’t understand chess. AlphaGo is engineered differently, using neural
networks and reinforcement learning models[4][5], but is not self-aware that it is
playing a game. Story-creating software creates a news story based on a
handful of facts about a baseball game using templated sentence structure and a
library of phrases. The Turing Test[6][7][8] is a measure of
sophistication to fool another human being, but not a test for intelligence.
Language inherently requires the ability to infer meaning from a
message. Inference is the process of reaching conclusions that are not
explicit in what was said. The fundamental design of digital systems today is
deductive by default. Anything which is predicted as an inference is a
probability distribution. This is a fundamental limitation of O’s and 1’s
and silicon-based circuitry. If an algorithm scans an image and
“recognizes” the letter A it is because the probability distribution of the
pattern is highly correlated with the letter A, which was trained into the
algorithm. When you speak with Siri or Google, a complicated back-end
analysis is assessing the probability of word matches by matching audio wave
patterns. Siri and Google systems do not “understand” your speech.
These digital tools cannot function apart from physical computer
components, memory management systems, and networks to move data packets.
Remove of these human-engineered, human-supported components, and the digital
tool is inactive code.
Digital tools are like a virus. The virus carries information. A
virus is not alive. A virus is only active when it infects a living cell
and leverages the machinery of that cell to produce more viruses.
The popular press reports on Craig Venter’s progress in creating an
artificial living cell gave many people flawed perceptions of what was
accomplished. DNA synthesized in a lab was pieced together to create a
working bacterial genome. This was inserted to a living bacterial cell to
replace the natural genome. Apart from a new instruction kit – which was
mostly patterned after the natural DNA instruction pattern – everything else
about this “artificial cell” was original[9][10][11]. These attempts
tell researchers a great deal about how small genomes operate but they have not
created artificial life.
The popular press accounts about AI are also giving citizens flawed
perceptions about the nature of AI.
The “Singularity” is a Fantasy
Ray Kurzweil, a brilliant engineer and futurist, has made many successful
predictions about technological advances[12][13][14].
He is probably the most famous advocate of the coming “Singularity,” when a
digital intelligence emerges which rivals and then exponentially outpaces human
intelligence. In his 2005 book, “The Coming Singularity” Kurzweil
suggested that this would happen in 2029, based on the exponential trends of
computing power. More recently, the date has been pushed out to 2040,
albeit with little explanation why. [15][16][17]
We can point to two singularities which already happened. Life
started. Humans appeared with unique intelligence capabilities which
exceeded other primates. The origin of life, and of humans, is deeply
disputed. All known life exploits DNA as a code, and we know of no codes
which are not designed.[18] There is an X Prize available
for anyone who can demonstrate a non-designed code[19][20][21].
People have debated the definition of life[22][23][24]
and consciousness for thousands of years, without coming to agreement that
would support an engineering design spec. We have multiple mental models
and philosophical constructs about consciousness and intelligence.[25][26][27]
Even those who agree that not all living things are conscious agree that all
known consciousness is associated with a living organism. The general
model that consciousness represents highly integrated information accessible by
the brain is far short of an engineering model for how to create it. Kurzweil
and others speak about uploading an individual’s consciousness to a digital
“cloud” in the future. A working detail for how consciousness operates
will be required if we’re going to engineer an artificial environment to host
it.
I state confidently that a true Artificial Intelligence is not going to
spontaneously arise from the kinds of computer systems we have today.
This is comparable to life arising spontaneously from non-life. It
doesn’t matter how many servers you have, what exponential CPU power exists, or
how much data you collect. There is no understood law of physics or math
which supports the prediction that self-awareness and intelligence happens at a
future critical threshold.
Belief that a Singularity is coming is faith without supporting
evidence.
The Exciting Potential of Digital Tools as Servants
Digital tools can be extremely helpful and powerful, even if true AI is
not going to happen with our silicon-based systems. I admire and respect
the optimism of techno-futurists like Peter Diamandis. I recommend his
book “Bold[28].” Technology advances coupled with
entrepreneurial organizations are responsible for much of the betterment of the
world in every measure in the last 100 years. In 2018 more than 50% of
the global population was middle or upper class economically for the first
time. We produce so much food that almost no one has starved to death
because of famines since 1990. Medical advances are tremendous.
Literacy and schooling is available to a billion more people now than in
1980. We could list many advances like this.
Digitization has been a powerful democratizing factor in making more
capabilities available to more people at a much lower cost. Digitization
amplifies the technology advances from biotech, robotics, sensors, energy
production/storage, and 3D printing. Digitization will be a linchpin
capability in solving many of the biggest problems still facing our global
population.
Yes, we have concerns about privacy of data and how data is used.
Yes, parents are still figuring out how best to raise children who have access
to practically any information and can spend hours in virtual reality.
Yes, there are new challenges in our social fabric when even video can be
convincingly manufactured to tell any story we want, and bad journalism can
promote false information. Yes, the accelerating technical capabilities
are transforming the workplace and eliminating whole some jobs which used to
pay a living wage.
Let us be grateful for digital capabilities and aim to be wise in
learning how to use it well. We’ve done this for fire, for the printing
press, for electricity, and for nuclear power. I’m confident we’ll find
solutions. Being a Luddite is not a constructive approach.
The Real Danger of Digital Tools
Collectivist political systems are incentivized to monitor thinking and
behaviors of their citizens. The Nazis, the Soviets, and East Germans
developed tremendous networks of spies and paper-based tracking systems to
monitor their citizens in the 20th century. It required an
enormous amount of human labor. Before the Berlin Wall came down one of
every three East German citizens was an informant for the government.
More recently, Cuba and Venezuela have had elaborate informant networks, though
not as extensive.
The Chinese Communist Party is creating a digital, all-encompassing
citizen monitoring system. Digital tools are scalable in ways that human
labor is not. They won’t need a third of their population to be
informants. Key components include ubiquitous video, facial recognition,
mandatory tracking apps on all mobile phones, government access to all means of
encryption, and systemic packet sniffing on network data flows. They
intend to tie this into a “social credit” scoring system where citizens are
rated based on their behavior[29][30]. A significant fraction of the
government’s investment in AI is related to this monitoring capability[31].
I hope you’re as horrified about this use of digital tools as I am.
If you think “But that’s just in China,” think again. Google and
Facebook have been “outed” for nefarious use of the data they’ve collected from
users. The algorithms Google and Facebook (and other platforms) use both
intentionally and unintentionally shape the way information is categorized and
presented. Google no longer uses their famous catch-phrase “don’t be
evil” in their code of conduct.[32][33][34] The US Government has
been monitoring network activity of citizens under the auspices of keeping
citizens safe from terrorists.[35][36][37] Amazon has
large contracts to provide digital system tools to the US government.[38][39][40]
The common theme here is that a relatively small number of people have
the potential to collect information, shape the way that information is
accessible or presented, and could use these tools for evil purposes.
Hannah Fry and others have documented how human bias shows up in the way
algorithms are designed.[41]
Though we like to tell ourselves that we would never be the bad
guy, history teaches us that anyone could be a participant in evil[42].
Solzhenitsyn observed “the line separating good and evil passes not through
states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right
through every human heart — and through all human hearts.”[43] Biology and
psychology teach us that everyone is limited by cognitive biases[44][45] and are
therefore susceptible to manipulation by others. Digital tools greatly amplify
the power of individuals to be evil.
We must guard against this current existential threat, rather than
worrying about Skynet someday emerging and deciding to nuke the world. We
need frameworks for transparency and a willingness to overcome our greed to
make the best decisions about use of digital tools. They’re here.
They’re not going to disappear. Nothing short of wise, moral people will
do.
How to proceed?
Be thoughtfully skeptical about the way AI is described and sold as a solution to problems. When you hear “AI” think “digital tool,” like the tools craftsmen and engineers use to create other tools and services. They’re useful in the right hands, but not independently intelligent.
Tell the truth, and don’t accept people telling lies. This limits the abuses of collectivism and dictatorships.[46]
Watch for the unintended consequences of activating many digital tools. There are always unintended consequences.
Follow the Money and Power by asking “Who benefits?” Who benefits from the current hype about AI and the coming Singularity? Who benefits from controlling access to data and shaping how it is presented? Who benefits from controlling how the rules work (in this case, the algorithms)?
May we be wise, intelligent people consciously using our non-intelligent
digital services for good.
(Glenn Brooke is the author of the soon-coming book, “Bold and Gentle:
Living Wisely in an Age of Exponential Change.” This article is adapted
from one of the chapters.)
(This post is written to my Christian brothers and sisters; all are welcome to listen.)
We often hear people say today, “I was born this way,” or “God
made me this way” as a justification for their preferred self-narrative, or
excuse for their choices.
This idea holds less theological water than a colander.
This is logic from Satan, inconsistent with what the Bible teaches
us. We’re all born dead in sin, and yet
held accountable by God for that sin. God
has provided a solution to a restored relationship with Him through the atoning
sacrifice of Jesus and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.
Supporting passages to explore:
“As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned,
this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his
parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might
be displayed in him.” (John 9:1-3 and following)
“For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made
alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:22)
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and
sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of
the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who
are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the
cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest,
we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us,
God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in
transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with
Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians
2:1-6)
“When you were dead in your sins and in the
uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all
our sins” (Colossians 2:13)
I note that people do not apply the “born this way” logic to
pedophiles, embezzlers, thieves, gluttons, drunkards, serial killers, rapists,
and murderers – though people routinely claim they were indeed born that way. This demonstrates the inconsistency of the
argument. Personal selectivity in
defining something as not a sin is a hazardous venture. You are setting your views above the Word
from our Lord. You diminish the awful price Jesus paid to save us. Frankly, it’s a Teflon-coated slope to a
place you don’t want to be.
God holds everyone accountable (Ecclesiastes 12:14; 2
Corinthians 5:10). All things are
possible with God (Matthew 19:26) – including overcoming the pull of temptation
(1 Corinthians 10:13).
None of this means we stop loving others. We’re commanded to love others as Christ
loves them, which includes calling them to righteousness and away from
sin. We judge those inside the Church
fellowship, but not outside it (see 1 Corinthians 5:12-13).
We should hold our leaders to high standards of behavior. They are not “above” anyone. They are steering and setting the pace. Their example is especially influential. We have a host of historical examples of what
happens when we don’t hold leaders to a high standard.
“Born this way”? Yes. Yet God loves us so much He doesn’t leave us
there.
It’s generally low-cost to complain about the quality or
quantity of help you’re getting from other parts of your organization… and
practically cost-free to whine about groups like HR, IT, Procurement,
Facilities, Finance, and Legal.
Smart leaders cultivate relationships with people in these
groups who are (1) critical to their teams’ success, and (2) can share insights
about the priorities and perspectives of these groups.
Here’s the test: When you have a serious need, is
there someone who will happily take your call and prioritize your request above
the noise in their inbox?
Evaluate your network. Make amends if necessary.
Create new connections where you have gaps.
I refer to 80/20 frequently. Distributions are not
always 80/20; sometimes we observe 70/30, or 95/5.
Inequity along any given dimension – athletic skill, access
to a resource, particular technical skills, ability to persuade, personal
health and wealth, etc – will happen. Every historical example where
people have tried to create uniform results across a population of people have
failed spectacularly. We’ve had much more success at creating equity in
opportunities.
The digitization of most elements of modern living has
accelerated the power of network effects. That means that 80/20 becomes
95/5, and even 98/2.
You and I don’t have to like this reality, but we’re foolish
to fight it.
Do everything you can to be in the 5% on aspects of life
which matter to you. Most importantly, decide how to be a
“benevolent dictator” when you get there, and use your standing for good.
Think of it as a stewardship responsibility.
Metaphor: waves in the ocean. If you can get on the front side of the wave, the energy will carry you a very long way with almost no additional effort on your part. That’s what being in the 5% is like. Once you slip to the back side of the wave, it races away from you so fast you cannot catch it. Make your plan to catch another wave.
HT: This article was inspired by comments from Perry Marshall
Shaping a preferred future is the work of leaders. Steward
Brand wrote “This present moment used to be the Unimaginable Future.” The future will happen if you’re passive; a
better future can happen when you act consciously.
Scenario planning is a useful practice for leaders operating
in VUCA environments. (That’s everyone
reading this.)
A scenario is fundamentally a story about a future state –
the who, what, were, when, and why.
All our knowledge is from the past; all our predictions are
about the future. Be humble about the constraints on our knowledge:
Don’t make the mistake of confusing these interrelated but
independent elements of scenario planning:
Strategic
Thinking (exploration to generate options)
Strategy
Development (assessing options to make decisions)
Strategic
Planning (implementation actions)
Be sure you have a powerful WHY to carry you through the
work. Curiosity helps immensely, as does
working with smart people you enjoy and respect.
Leverage the experience of others to manage the HOW process.
Effective scenario planning is not a 30-minute exercise by one person. Success comes from discussion in the context
of deliberate practices. This sequence will give you the best
results:
Identify the focal question and timescale
Scan the internal and external environment (challenge assumptions!)
Select and rank the change drivers.
Identify wildcards.
Build the scenario matrix (possible, plausible, probable, preferable)
Flesh out scenarios with more detail
Consider the strategic implications with stakeholder group(s)
Decide, then create execution plan. Revisit externals and assumptions periodically
Relative position and absolute position are completely different measures.
I was top of my elementary school class,
in the top 1% of high school, but only in the top 15% of my university.
Some mid-level managers have $200
million budgets, and some organizations have VPs with a $220,000 budget.
The shortest member of the NBA is taller
than me, and has a vertical leap about 30 inches higher than me.
I’m wealthier (funds, access to
resources, opportunities, education) than 95% of population of Earth, but don’t
feel that way in everyday life.
When I am sitting still, completely
relaxed, my body is traveling with the earth. The rotational speed of my
location in Iowa is about 900 miles/hour. The earth is moving an average of 19
miles per second (67,000 miles per hour) in its orbit around the sun. Our
solar system is traveling about 155 miles per second as part of the Milky Way
galaxy. Astrophysicists estimate the Milky Way galaxy is moving
about 185 miles per second through the universe.
Leaders get to decide whether to focus
on relative or absolute reference points.
I’m hard on the “climate change” conversation. I’ve been asked why I am so critical, and why I can’t “accept” what the scientists say.
It’s personal.
As a boy I devoured the eco-dystopian science fiction stories of the 1970’s. I read and re-read books like “Limits to Growth” (Donna Meadows et al) and “The Population Bomb” (Paul Erlich). I asked my dad to get me cassette tapes of seminars by Erlich, Peter Gunter, and Kenneth Watt. I eagerly went to every winter camping opportunity I could with my Boy Scout troop because I read so many articles about the coming Ice Age and wanted to be prepared. I relished the Earth Day celebrations, which began in 1970. Though I wasn’t too worried about my home in rural West Virginia being targeted by a Soviet nuke, I talked with my parents about how we could survive on our 11-acre property during the subsequent nuclear winter and drew up plans for a fallout shelter to ride out the first 3 months while the radiation subsided. (In fifth grade my teacher was worried about how many sketches of fallout shelters and lists of supplies I created, and she talked with my mom about it.) I did a science project on plants that would still grow in harsh environments I believed were inevitable. I mapped out which places my family could move to that might still be livable.
I was mentally and emotionally invested. I would get worked up into a mixture of tears and anger that my parents and grandparents’ generation had “done this” to me. I had nightmares about my beloved fields and woods becoming a wasteland, and not having enough food to feed everyone I knew. I wondered if I should become a doctor so I could help all the sick and dying people.
Over a few short years from 1981-1987 I realized that none of the ecological disaster forecasts came true. Acid rain was a serious problem, but a few regulations and industry innovations eliminated it in the US. We didn’t run out of oil or natural gas or copper. There were no food riots in the US, and no mass famines in Russian, India, and China. The primary famine was in the horn of Africa, and that was caused as much by war as drought. The US had more trees instead of fewer. We had warming temperatures and milder winters instead of every winter being like 1977 and 1978. Commodity prices mostly fell rather than rising exponentially. The number of earthquakes and forest fires and hurricanes were far lower than had been predicted. Animal species were not dying off in the thousands per year, and the soils did not uniformly become less productive.
Now I was angry because I had believed all the predictions and wasted all that emotion and energy. They wrote and spoke so confidently, cleverly using some facts. They had “computer models,” which we believed must be correct because only smart people could make computer models. As I investigated more I realized they had suckered me into their narrative, and I had willing – eagerly — gone along. I also more carefully studied the history of science and found many cases where “everyone” believed something was true but it wasn’t. When was the last time you heard anyone talking about the canals someone built on Mars? Yet from the mid-1800’s to about 1975 everyone believed they existed.
This experience reinforced three things:
1. Be a skeptic about any predictions of the future. Humility, humility, humility.
2. Guard carefully against anyone and everyone trying to manipulate my emotions.
3. Sincerity is not a measure of truth.
I look at the hysterical dystopian accounts about climate change catastrophes breathlessly promulgated today and think “I’ve seen this script before.” I listen to kid’s tearfully pleading with adults to fix the climate so they won’t die, and I think “I was that kid.” I watch smart people totally sucked into “the seas will rise and storms will grow worse” narrative and think “I was smart and believed the stories, too.” I spot clear examples of data manipulation and skewed data presentation and think, “I often fell for those kinds of charts without checking how they were created.”
We have a stewardship responsibility to care for the natural world. Weather and climate are important. Many aspects of Earth Day are commendable, and certainly the US has done an enormous amount of good work to clean up our air and water. I applaud the progress. I’ve written an extensive article documenting what we should be talking about related to climate change. And I am still concerned about nuclear weapons as a threat to the planet!
