for that which can be invented
warm up to AI, and soon, as everything that can be invented, will.
this is a really fun, clever emergent effect of language…. to go from a phrase about invention, to a possibly misattributed quote about invention to suggesting inventions people want…
The Real Point of My Writing Today
Once citizens adopted search engines as a tool for everyday use businesses had to publish and optimize themselves for search engines.
AI, in whatever forms calcify into common use, force the same transition for businesses.
How will an AI find and interact and expose a business to citizens?
Businesses are in a much bigger bind this time though because they very much do not know how to encode their knowledge at scale. Usually the best knowledge of a company gets designed and managed into a combination of software applications and support processes and physical infrastructures. And a lot of that knowledge to manage and operate all of it stays within a few brains and routines of specialist human roles within an organization.
The user demands of AI are much greater than search engines. Users understood that search engines could get you to information, but would not do anything. Citizens expect AI to find information and do something with it — to actually execute tasks. AI makes very explicit encroachments into the actual work and value of businesses themselves.
My hypothesis is simple — all businesses must become AI businesses. They literally need to build and train their own AI and make sure all their AIs can inter-opt with other businesses AI and citizens and citizen’s own AIs. Yes, literally. Businesses really do have to get GREAT at knowledge generation, knowledge management and education.
Most businesses won’t and probably won’t make it another 10–15 years. Imagine most businesses end up turning into restaurant like operations. A few businesses will be premium artisanal, can get by without fancy AI, but most won’t even get noticed unless their AI is making them available.
Lightweight history is useful to vet this hypothesis…Restaurants basically were the first businesses to fully fall to the information-technology revolution — restaurants 40–50 years ago had to deal with being drive thru and/or phone based (if you weren’t in the phone book and didn’t have 800 number you didn’t get customers) and then finally, en masses, part of a delivery service. If you ain’t on a delivery app now you die…. Location, Location, Location — still true — but the definition of a location is what changes with information-tech.
1940s-1970s:
if car is present:
enable drive-thru service
1970s-1990s:
if phone is present:
enable phone order
enable delivery service
1980s-2000s:
if computer is present:
enable Point of Sale (POS) system
2000s-Present:
if internet is present:
establish online presence
enable online order
2010s-Present:
if smartphone is present:
develop mobile app
integrate with delivery platforms
Present and Future:
if AI and robotics are present:
integrate AI for order taking and marketing
integrate robotics for cooking and servingBusinesses, by in large, outsourced getting good at computation to a few big tech companies and then to various consultancies. Now that software drives so much of how any businesses builds and manages its products and AI encroaches on the means of production, there’s no way for a business to avoid having to flat out get really good at computation and AI. Period.
Businesses can use AI to get really good at AI. but they won’t. Generally, businesses are intellectually and process-wise conservative.
AI is the only bet and most won’t place the bet with their business, but everyone eventually will work at an AI business. I bet.
Good luck to all!
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ps. vs.
