Hiding from Karma in an AI World

Recently an artificial intelligence system in China successfully passed a medical exam for the first time.  This is a significant advance in healthcare.  Potentially AI can soon provide high quality medical diagnoses remotely anywhere around the world.   Another significant step in AI and robotics happen a couple of years ago in Saudi Arabia where they granted citizenship to a robot named Sophia.  I wonder if that robot will be forced to wear a burka?  With all these rapid advancements, I think it is time we explore the spiritual life of robots and artificial intelligence.

Up until recently, human programmers coded and configured algorithms, AI, automation and machine learning system and took personal responsibility for all of their own code.  Today, however, AI has escaped the confines of human oversight and has been empowered and employed to self-program, self-optimize, self-test, self-configure and self-learn.  David Gunning writes, "Continued advances [in AI] promise to produce autonomous systems that will perceive, learn, decide, and act on their own."  That's potentially a big problem for karma.

A simplistic definition of karma is a spiritual principle that teaches good actions and good intent lead to good things now and in the future, while bad actions and bad intent lead to bad things now and in the future.  What happens to a human programmer that empowers or transfers responsibility for future decisions and actions to a robot - an autonomous machine with artificial intelligence?  Will karma eventually seek out the original human programmer of the autonomous system, long since retired and fishing on a mountain lake to extract retribution, or direct bad karma to the machine?  It's a problem.

The Emerging Crisis in Truth and Reasoning

I have the good fortune to meet with and interview many distinguished business and technology leaders in the normal course of my work.  One of the most common subjects of discussion in 2019 was the increasing importance of data and data analytics.  Everyone needs data and an understanding of what it means to operate today.  Data is captured and analyzed to determine facts, and the facts are weighed and measured to derive the truth.  Without data, facts can’t be supported, truth can’t be determined and effective reasoning cannot be applied.

Most people recognize the role of truth in reasoning.  Reasoning without truth is like programming without logic.  It doesn’t work.  Computers run on logic as does nearly the entire world as a result of digital transformation. Truth and logic allow others to replicate your processes by following the logic, testing it, and debugging any issues.  That is why it is so critical, in an advanced digital society, to respect and honor the value and utility of truth and logic.  Without truth scientific breakthroughs and processes can’t be delivered, digital systems and economies can’t operate, and governments cannot sustain the trust and cooperation of their citizens.

Managing the Risk in Complex Global Supply Chains with Expert Padmini Ranganathan

In this episode, I interview supply chain risk and sustainability expert and SAP Ariba Global Vice President, Padmini Ranganathan. She shares her knowledge, advice and experiences with us. She also updates us on the latest trends in SCM and shares where the industry is heading. The full interview can be watched here.


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Kevin Benedict

Managing Partner, Digital Transformation, Regalix

RegalixTV

Website Regalix Inc.

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

It's Critical to Measure Your Organization's Capacity for Change

Change is difficult.  The default mode of most organizations is to resist change. There are many anecdotes in business that demonstrate this.  I remember many years ago when Blockbuster Video’s own board resisted change out of concern for short-term profits, which doomed it.

Businesses that can redirect energy to fast and positive transformation can exploit many more opportunities than enterprises mired in resistance.  The challenge for leaders is creating an organization that is not only prepared and willing to change, but that also has enough energy and resources to succeed.

One of the rules of the First Law of Thermodynamics is, "Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed.”  I propose there is an application of this rule in business.  If energy is being consumed on resisting changes to your business, then it is not available for making changes to your business.  When markets are rapidly changing due to economic conditions, business or technology innovations, changing customer behaviors or new forms of competition, companies must be able to quickly redirect energy focused on resisting to implementing positive change in order to win.

Change consumes energy, and energy is limited.  That means in order to make changes to keep up with a rapidly changing market, energy must be conserved and stock piled so it is available.  Expending scarce energy resisting intelligent change is a huge waste.  Making investments and taking your business down a path that cannot quickly be undone if the market moves a different direction is also a big waste.

Adapting Our Minds to Perpetual Change

Customers' expectations continue to grow. They want instant, convenient, personalized, customized, predicted, recommended, rewarded and private. They want their own curated lifestyle mirrored back to them. They want control. They want mobile and fast. They desire digital experiences that are simple, consistent, beautiful and elegant. They want massive quantities of information – but in bite size quantities. They want to manage their lives from a smart phone anywhere at any time. The want to work from a coffee shop and be 100% productive.

Most of the world has already embraced the digital revolution. Our lives and behaviors are changing. The way we think and act are evolving as we integrate digital tools into our habits and processes. We constantly reach for our second brains (i.e. Wikipedia, search engines, apps) to access all of the information needed to both survive and thrive in the digital age. Our memories have been altered. We remember how to find information, rather than knowing the information itself.

These changes are rapidly impacting marketplaces, industries and even global economies. We use our smartphones for everything from meeting romantic partners, finding jobs, investing our money, ordering food, finding a ride, remembering to breathe, paying the water bill, monitoring our health, analyzing our DNA and even finding and buying our homes.

John Boyd, a renowned military strategist, taught that life is a process of adaptation, and that winners/survivors will find ways to exploit change and to adapt to it in order to survive and win. He taught that adapting and winning requires three things:

1. People - must be trained to think, and act in ways conducive to winning in their environment
2. Ideas - learn ideas (doctrines, strategies and tactics) conducive to winning in their environment
3. Things - utilize the best technologies, equipment, materials, design, etc. available to exploit change and win

The Power of Knowing

Throughout history military leaders have suffered through the “fog of war" - the desperation of not knowing critical information.  Information as basic as where are my people and resources, and where are my opponents' people and resources?

The answers to these questions were and are critical for implementing the right strategies and tactics to win. Likewise, the absence of answers to these questions are equally impactful. Leaders spend enormous amounts of time and energy defending against all the possibilities represented by a lack of data. Think about a scenario of being lost in a dark forest at night with an unknown dangerous predator lurking about. Which direction would you face? How would you defend yourself? It is difficult in the best of times, but the absence of data can make it even more excruciating!

A Deep Dive Interview with SAP Ariba's Gretchen Eischen

In this interview recorded at SAP Ariba Live, I have the pleasure of sitting down with and learning from Gretchen Eischen, SAP Ariba’s VP of Corporate Marketing. She gives us a behind the scenes views into what it takes to organize and manage large event’s like SAP Ariba Live, and discusses SAP Ariba’s focus for 2019. We also take a deep dive into what is really meant by the term intelligent spend, and how spend-choices can be used for global good.



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Kevin Benedict

SVP Strategy, Regalix Inc.

Online TV Channel RegalixTV

Website Regalix Inc.

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

A Digital Winner's Playbook

Winners know how the game is played. When rules change, so do their game plans. In this article I have created a customer experience playbook on what it will take to win in 2019.

1. Information dominance is a key goal. Throughout history conquerors gained by capturing territories, bridges, resources and key cities. Today’s conquerors gain with data insights that can be applied to customer experience.

2. Combinatorial data is key to understand customer experience. Data gathered from many different sources then combined and analyzed will provide unique insights into patterns, activities and behaviors invisible to competitors without.

3. Operational blind spots are a minefield for businesses. Blind spots must quickly be replaced with visibility through all kinds of data capture - automated data capture, surveys, digitization, sensors and RPA (robotic process automation).

Marketing Insights and the Battle Against Cyber Evil with Vasu Jakkal, CMO, FireEye

Vasu Jakkal, CMO of FireEye, shares her insights from the frontlines of the battle against cyber villains, and also her experiences and strategies marketing the solutions and services developed to protect democracy and the global digital economy.

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Kevin Benedict

SVP Strategy, Regalix Inc.

Online TV Channel RegalixTV

Website Regalix Inc.

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

My Interview with RAF Air Commodore John Wariner on Digital Transformation

In this special interview, I am honored to have as my guest John Wariner, Air Commodore for the Royal Air Force. John has served 36-years in the RAF and has seen and experienced incredible changes, served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and led digital transformation initiatives involving tens of thousands of users. In this delightful interview, we dig deep into organizational changes, agile operations, military strategies, and running an IT organization from tents in combat zones in the desert.

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Kevin Benedict

SVP Solutions Strategy, Regalix Inc.

Website Regalix Inc.

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.