#72-AI: The Business Context

In the episode I will reflect on what I have learned by interacting with the management of the corporations I teach for, regarding the thoughts, concerns, and plans around AI.

Transcript

AI - The Business Context 

I do a lot of training for large corporations. Over the past three decades I have trained and consulted for Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Amazon, Adobe, eBay, Google, large government contractors like Lockheed and Boeing… the list goes on. My classes have tended to be very popular among the, primarily, software developers who attend them, and so I have established a fair amount of goodwill within these organizations. 

Recently I have been approached by the leadership of some of these organizations to help them take the pulse of their technical employees regarding AI. They know that the students have come to trust me and often seek out advice from me during the training process. 

Because of this I've had an opportunity to be exposed to how the business leaders that drive these large organizations are thinking about AI. I have to be careful about breaking confidences here, but I can give you some broad information about how the management of large corporations are approaching the question of artificial intelligence. 

Usually, the first thing that they have mentioned to me is that they are not unconscious of the economic context within which AI is developing. The fear that many of my students expressed to me, namely that their jobs will be replaced by sophisticated automation, has led me to be concerned about the economic impact this will have overall. But a large corporation has to exist in a marketplace, and they cannot afford to shrink that marketplace by damaging the economy it exists in.

Put simply, these organizations understand that they cannot exist without a customer base that can afford to purchase their products. Hearing that was encouraging to me, but not surprising. 

What was somewhat surprising, mostly because I simply hadn't thought of it and because I am not an AI expert, was that AI is enormously expensive to create. These large data centers that are currently being developed are costly to design and build but also very expensive to run in terms of the power consumption they require and the enormous effort it takes to cool them.  Those that are building them are keeping a close eye on the ROI they can offer.

So, the idea that replacing, in my case, developers with AI as an economic windfall is not nearly so simple as it sounds. In some cases, AI can actually be more expensive than human developers.

But what was the most striking to me was the reason that they had come to me in the first place. In almost every case it was because they wanted to know what the developers are asking me, and what I am telling them about AI. 

The last two podcasts were about that very question. 

At first, I laid out the notion that AI is an advancement in the technological assistance that tools can offer to developer to increase their efficiency, much as integrated development environments had been since the early 90’s. I have pointed out that software has always been a collaboration between the developer and technology, it’s just that the nature of that collaboration changes.. 

The second podcast was about pointing out that similar fears about outsourcing had proven unwarranted because the need for automation on this planet is growing at an ever-increasing rate.  That is more true every year.

When I expressed these messages to the managers and leaders who these developers are working for, I got the strong sense that they were glad that this is what I was saying, because what they really want to have happen is for AI to be a supercharging tool for their development effort, not a replacement for it.

My point of view of course is influenced strongly by the fact that I spend most of my time working with software developers. But in looking around at other Industries I find the same message being repeated, namely that people are learning how to use AI to enhance their own productivity and therefore make themselves more valuable as employees.

Am I being naive in this observation? That's certainly possible. That's why I began this entire investigation by encouraging all of you to give me feedback, specifically on this series of podcasts. I hope you'll take me up on that invitation. 

What do you think?

You can contact me at scott.bain@pmi.org.