[Sticky] Link to the YouTube video of the 'fundamentals' part of my 2024 talks on insights into the digital revolution. About how the IT revolution provides reliable performance, but the price paid is less agility (IT is brittle and thus ever more It becomes ever more difficult to change). About how we humans react/have reacted to this and why 'Complexity Crunch' and not a 'Singularity Point' is coming. Also contains links to related posts on the site for those that rather read than watch..
Category: Information Revolution
Can we break through the inertia that plagues IT-change?
You’re on the Titanic. The engineers are shouting: “The bulkheads are too low! The rudder is too small! There aren’t enough life boats!”. The sailors mumble: “It has been cold, there will be many more icebergs than usual and further south”. The owners are pressing the captain: “You should be in New York in six days, we desperately need a record!”. And the captain thinks: “I have execution power. I can break through. I will be successful.” and orders: “Northerly course and full steam ahead!”. Move fast and break things…
Like we don’t see air, we don’t see the Digital Revolution
Fundamental properties of digital IT have set ons on a road not to a Singularity Point, but towards Complexity Crunch. That has consequences for our strategic (IT) choices and landscapes. A ‘long read’ (sorry) about lessons we can learn by now after half a century of Digital Revolution so far. Written as I have been giving talks about the subject this pas half year.
Generative AI doesn’t copy art, it ‘clones’ the artisans — cheaply
The early machines at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution produced 'cheap' (in both meanings) products and it was the introduction of that 'cheap' category that was actually disruptive. In the same way, where 'cheap' is acceptable (and no: that isn't coding), GenAI may disrupt today. But there is a difference. Early machines were separate inventions creating a comparable product. GenAI is trained on the output of humans, their skill is 'cloned' and it is this 'cloned skill' that produces the 'comparable product'. GenAI is not 'copying art', it is 'cloning the artisan'. And our intellectual rights haven't yet caught up.
No-IT. Really. No. I. T.
What happens when your organisation suddenly loses all of its IT? There are enough realistic ways for that to happen. Think: a really successful ransomware attack. As it turns out, first turning ourselves into 'digital organisations', and then requiring a speedy recovery from 'digital armageddon' creates a weapons grade challenge. A story about 'Out-of-Systems', 'Out-of-Sync', and your 'Minimal Viable Organisation' (MVO), and a 'fix' that may only make matters worse.
Don’t forget all the things that a core team performs to a tee, but that you never see
The third 'fragmentation wave' of the IT-revolution is upon us, it seems. Fragmentation/encapsulation is a repeated pattern in the IT-revolution for managing complexity. First as object oriented programming (for code) and later as agile (for IT landscape change). Now, it is the organisation’s turn to fragment. How strong is your mission, your ‘why’? You might soon find out, thanks to IT.
Ain’t No Lie — The unsolvable(?) prejudice problem in ChatGPT and friends
Thanks to Gary Marcus, I found out about this research paper. And boy, is this is both a clear illustration of a fundamental flaw at the heart of Generative AI, as well as uncovering a doubly problematic and potentially unsolvable problem: fine-tuning of LLMs may often only hide harmful behaviour, not remove it.
Artificial General Intelligence is Nigh! Rejoice! Be very afraid!
Should we be hopeful or scared about imminent machines that are as intelligent or more than humans? Surprisingly, this debate is even older than computers, and from the mathematician Ada Lovelace comes an interesting observation that is as valid now as it was when she made it in 1842.
Cicero and chatGPT — signs of AI progress?
Cicero, an AI, performed in the top 10% against human performers in the game Diplomacy, which is about negotiating with others. chatGPT is making the rounds with its impressive output. Are these AI breakthroughs or at least signs of real progress? Or signs of trouble to come?
It is life, Jim. But not as we know it.
Blake Lemoine, a Google engineer, has claimed the LaMDA language neural net chatbot is sentient, is alive. Nonsense on stilts, according to one critic. A musing about the meaning of 'life'. And abortion. And doubt. And the point Lemoine has but doesn't make.
R&A IT Strategy & Architecture 