Impersonal wave movements. Most people can
sense them and a few clearly see them coming, but they defy efforts to control
or shape them. These include demographic changes in population, the broad
swath of technological advances, changing tastes and sensibilities of large
people groups, ecological shifts, and the transition between older and new
business models. These waves have massive energy but only become a big
topic of conversation when they “suddenly” are seen as a threat to a favored
status quo.
Choices by tiny proportion of individuals.
These come from country leaders, bureaucrats, organizational leaders, the
people who control/influence media, the algorithm designers and gatekeepers,
judges, potentially your neighbors, and even members of your own family.
We hold leaders to high standards because a subset of their decisions have
disproportionately large and long consequences for many others. History
is replete with events unleashed by the act of one individual – WW1 was
triggered by a single assassin, tech-shaping businesses began as dreams of one
person, and kings decided when to go to war. I write “tiny proportion of
individuals” because in the real story it is never just one person acting
alone; others help or choose not to hinder. As Andy Andrews has pointed
out, there are about 1000 elected leaders in the US whose decisions influence
the lives of 315 million people. Less than 300 Chinese leaders
systematically control a 1.3 billion person juggernaut. There are
millions of cooperative people aligned (some unconsciously) with those 1300
leaders.
Note that the impersonal wave movements can be exploited by
savvy individuals, and often set up unstable conditions where a normally
insignificant decision or event triggers a cataclysm of changes.
You need discernment about wave movements, and being alert for consequential choices of the few. Develop discernment by studying history, and especially history through biographies. Seek out conversations with people with discernment — there are relatively few, so be selective. As I learned in the Boy Scouts, “Be Prepared.”
My friend Lane Arthur used to say, “Rain is a lagging
indicator.” We measure the rain as an output of a complex atmospheric
system with many inputs.
Yet rain is a leading indicator for a farmer, or a
whitewater kayaker seeking a bigger thrill.
Every system is perfectly designed to produce the results it
generates. Leaders and managers, being in the system improvement
business, need to think clearly about leading and lagging indicators.
We can draw it this way:
Where to find leading and lagging indicators
Indicators are oriented before or after the critical
step/event. All indicators have some value; leading indicators are
more valuable than lagging indicators for improving system performance.
It takes skill and ingenuity to create valuable leading indicators
because they are rarely obvious. Tap into multiple perspectives to
identify candidate indicators.
Lagging indicators often become the leading indicator for
the next interaction of a system, or a separate system.
Be smart about indicators to ratchet up your leadership
effectiveness.
“Criticism is something we can easily avoid
by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” (Aristotle)
All leaders are criticized.
Everyone who holds a firm view will be criticized. For most of us this
reality is no fun.
A few helps:
Accept that being criticized is
part of the package deal for leadership.
You have a set of responsibilities, significant privileges, and will receive
criticism. You don’t get to opt out of part of the package and keep the
rest.
Distinguish between criticism
based on misunderstanding and misinformation from criticism based on what you
truly decided, said, and did. As
best you’re able, when there is a hope of corrected information being
meaningful to others, gently provide correct information. Avoid “throwing
pearls before swine.” Where criticism is a difference of opinion about
what should have been decided/said/did, weigh it carefully to see what lessons
are to be learned. Stand firm if you remain convicted; plan to
behave differently in the future if that’s appropriate.
Remember the limitations of
your critics. They see only a
fraction (and usually a tiny fraction) of what you’re doing. They most
likely know less than you do about the information you had at the time you
needed to make a decision. There is no cost for them to be “Monday
morning quarterbacks” because they’re not in the arena with you. They
often criticize as if it’s possible to do a proper split-test experiment on a
historical situation, which simply cannot happen.
Don’t give in to bullying and
legalists. Appeasement is a failed
strategy. Be disciplined but exercise your freedoms. Both bullies
and legalists despise humor, so use it well to help the larger audience understand
their pettiness.
Be teachable. Your critics can help you improve in the
future. There are sometimes hard kernels of truth in the fluff of
popcorn.
Don’t allow yesterday’s
criticisms to use up too much of today and tomorrow. Most of us feel and remember criticism more keenly
than praise and commendation. Train yourself to acknowledge them, and
then keep whatever part is valuable in a well-managed “lessons learned”
compartment of your mind.
Several kind people have expressed their disappointment with the look of this website. They suggest more pictures, a nicer header, some nifty plugins. I chuckled when one friend wrote “Your blog is kinda texty.”
It’s understandable. Many popular sites are highly visual. People with fast connections like images, videos, flashy stuff.
I’m not likely to make this change.
First, I’m focusing on ideas and words, with the occasional supporting diagram or picture. That’s what I do.
Second, I want this site to load f-a-s-t! Well-formatted text loads faster than images, especially on phones and tablets.
I arrived near the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation –
born 1946-1964
Then come Gen X – 1965-1980
Then Millennials (sometimes called Gen Y) – 1981-1996
Then Gen Z – 1996 to today
(Sidebar: Ever notice the US bias in the way these
categories are set up? Since we’re at the end of the alphabet I expect
the next generation will get a nifty nickname rather than a letter.)
You can certainly identify major experiences and events that
distinguish these generations. Those experiences shape what each generation
tends to value. Keep in mind that experiences in the US, China, Columbia,
Belgium, and South Africa were significantly different for those generations.
All that makes some sense in the abstract, and affects what
self-narrative is reinforced for individuals in those generations. Yet
saying “She’s in Gen Z therefore ________ must be true” will be
inaccurate much of the time.
When it comes to interacting with individuals –
genuine flesh and blood people – in your organization, the “Gen whatever” labels
aren’t helpful. It’s much more valuable to understand these things about
a person:
Behavior and style characteristics (e.g., DiSC or Meyers-Briggs score)
Their personal experiences in life, especially early experiences
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
