Tag: disruptive technology

The AI Sovereignty Gap

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

It’s time to play offence – build a National AI Data Grid and sovereign digital capability.

Australia is the 14th largest economy in the world — but on Harvard’s Economic Complexity Index we rank a disgraceful 103rd. In fact, we currently rank behind Bangladesh, Senegal, and Uganda — a shocking reality for a top-20 economy.

Why? Because we’ve quietly become a giant housing Ponzi scheme with a mining habit.

We don’t have a homegrown search engine.
We don’t have a social network.
We don’t have a local browser or operating system, any meaningful digital platform — or anything serious in AI.

Honestly, every time you type @gmail.com it should be @auspost.com.au
No — this wouldn’t be hard. And yes — I trust our government departments more than I trust Google. (At least we can vote out a government.)

Seriously, we should build platforms at a macro level for private industry to leverage. It’s the smart play.

And while it’s easy to shrug and say, “We can’t compete with Silicon Valley,” the truth is we can. I don’t buy the narrative that we’re too small to matter. We have some of the best universities and educators in the world — we must, education is our third-biggest export (about A$21 billion in tuition fees alone). Global firms want you to believe only they can do this…. those running any show always do.

We have a deep local talent pool in tech and engineering.

What we lack isn’t resources or talent — it’s courage and leadership. A few decades ago, during the period of economic rationalism, we did something incredibly irrational — we stopped leveraging our abundant resources to build sovereign capability. And what got was houses no one can afford and cheap t-shirts.

What we need now is the ability to ignore the naysayers and actually compete. And honestly, whenever Australia has had a crack, we usually do quite well. Sports, the arts, and world-changing inventions (Wi-Fi, anyone?) are simple and informative examples.

We Used to Make Things

Once upon a time, Australia made cars, clothing, electronics. Manufacturing was everywhere — and when we did, equality ran deeper. Opportunity was broader. We gave more Australians a seat at the economic table.

Today, we export rocks, import iPhones, and hope for the best. Our most successful tech companies (like Atlassian) list overseas. And we wonder why our economy feels hollow.

Sovereignty Is a Choice

It’s not too late to rebuild — but we need to remember something important: We are sovereign.

Governments can set the rules. Companies — even trillion-dollar ones — will follow.

China did this with manufacturing and later, technology. They forced foreign companies into joint ventures, built capacity, and are now globally competitive in every industry, at every scale.

We could do the same at the dawn of this new AI era.

Infrastructure Over New Businesses

I don’t think Australia should try to launch government-run businesses. But we can provide infrastructure at scale that businesses can leverage as a tool.

This is what all the rich industrial countries in the West used to do: electricity grids, gas pipelines, roads and highways — but somewhere along the way, they lost the script. It’s time we found it again.

And the time is now — at the dawn of a new era. If we don’t, we risk becoming subservient to foreign tech powers, just as developing economies were to the West in the 1970s and ’80s.

Imagine This

  • Every hyperscale data centre built in Australia was partly government-owned, funded by the very big tech firms using it.
  • Or we built a National AI Data Grid — A$100B worth of GPU infrastructure — owned by the government and made open source for Australian startups, researchers, and entrepreneurs to tap into.
  • We let 1,000 flowers bloom, giving every clever mind in the country access to the raw compute power they need to build AI tools, platforms, and companies.

** Get me into do an AI keynote at your next event. I’ll use this as my testimonial!

Ignore the Naysayers

The AFR recently ran a piece saying it would be “crazy” for Australia to build its own LLM. I think it would be crazy not to.

Others say it can be done for under A$100M — and they’re right. But even if it cost A$10B, the long-term payoff in capability, exports, and independence would dwarf it.

The 21st Century Imperative

Australia can no longer rely on digging things up and selling them to the world. We need to build things again — digital things, and AI tools.

If we don’t, we stay stuck at the bottom of the economic complexity league table. If we do, we become the future-facing economy we like to imagine we already are.

Let’s stop renting the future from Silicon Valley.
Let’s own a piece of it.

Keep thinking,

Steve.

The Biggest Tech Trend for 2020

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

The biggest tech trend in 2020 won’t be a new widget or a shiny piece of glass. It will be one of the oldest technologies from civilised society: governance.

One of our species’ oldest and most important technologies is language itself. Our ability to write and document knowledge is what puts us on top of the food chain. Part of the documentation process is the rules, regulations and boundaries we use to govern the market place. 2020 will be the year we remember for how we ‘civilised’ the technology we all love so much.

In the past 20 years we have metaphorically discovered fire. The internet has become a tool which is so vital for mere economic participation, that no one dared asked if we should be careful about its consequences. But this fire has got a little out of control recently. While we want its heat, we need to make sure we don’t all get burned in the long run. Fire can keep our houses warm, cook our food and power a combustion engine, but it can also burn down a city if we don’t build in thoughtful safeguards.

Finally activists and governments are starting to take notice. Next year we’ll see actions which will make the GDPR look like child’s play. We can expect a number of market changing actions to commence. Things like antitrust action, algorithmic regulation, digital advertising standards, tax on data holdings, bans on data surveillance, outlawing of facial recognition and social media content standards, to name a few. Ironically, this will be a huge challenge for the disrupters themselves, as they have built entire business models around this largely unregulated territory. When it comes to tech, the ‘EPA’ is about to arrive to take a good close look at how they’ve been polluting our society with their data economy externalities.

So will there be any big tech shifts in 2020? Of course, they’ll keep coming thick and fast: digital twins, mesh architecture, hyper automation, human augmentation,  bio-tech interfaces, and autonomous things. But next year, the big issue will be the management of the political, social and economic consequences of the exponential technology in businesses.

Good news:

Tommy McCubbin and I have developed a new session we call 2020 Vision.

A year in review – A year in preview.

In this session, we review 2019 and preview 2020 by looking at what happened, what it means and what’s next. Many of the insights will surprise even the most agile of technology observers. The entire thing is presented in GIFs – yep, you read that right. It’s a fun session to end the year with your team, and sew the seeds of the thinking needed to thrive in 2020. We only have 6 slots available and I expect them to be gone by Monday.

If your team is up for it, hit me back with reply email and get ready to have your mind blown.

Steve.

We Need a New Mailroom

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Why would we need a mailroom, I hear you say. The reason is simple: the mailroom wasn’t really about the mail. Sure, it was the place where the mail was sorted, sent and delivered, but ironically, it delivered much more than that.

The mailroom was really a place that served lots of important, and since lost, functions for many big organisations. Firstly, the mailroom was an entry point. It was a place where people could enter a large and respected organisation with few formal qualifications. It was a classic back door entry into what we might call a restricted building. It was a way in, especially for those who didn’t fit the mould or thrive in a traditional schooling environment. They could find a way in, forge relationships, learn about the business from the ground up, pay attention, hear the whispers in the hallway and learn about the business actually in the metaphorical trenches. It was a quasi-business apprenticeship model.

Now, you might be thinking, “Oh well, it doesn’t make that much difference, because there are still plenty of youngsters to choose from in pretty much every industry.” Let’s add that all too often, today’s youngsters are over-qualified for the first jobs of their careers. But here’s where this entry point differs. It attracts a different type of a person. A person who comes from a different path and who might have a way of learning that’s different to traditional graduates. A different way of seeing the world. Perhaps less academically inclined but with a different kind of smarts. They may have learned kinesthetically, been better at observing interpersonal dynamics and understanding how politics plays out at work. You might have even met a great leader who came via the non-traditional path. I have, more than once.

One person I know who entered this way is the best leader I’ve ever worked with. Smart, strategic, considerate, empathic – this person has it all and he started in the mailroom of an advertising agency. I’m not even sure if he finished secondary school. Today, he runs a multi-billion dollar business in Australia. He’s different to most other leaders I’ve met, who have taken a more traditional path via formal education. I put it down to the mailroom being very different to the textbook. While we are, importantly, increasing the diversity of people in organisations, we are ironically decreasing the diversity of their arrival journey.

Over the past 20 years, slowly but surely, entry level administrative jobs have evaporated. First it was the typing pool, then the mailroom, and today, only the most senior executives are afforded any kind of administrative assistance. Yep, we send our own mail – mostly electronically and the occasional FedEx. While that’s not necessarily bad – it has left a significant non-mail related gap in organisations. Maybe it’s time we imagined a new kind of ‘mailroom’.

You’re the Movie Star Now

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

If you think our self-obsessed society couldn’t get any more obsessed with our self image, then hold on tight. We’re about turn this gig up to eleven. While we rarely admit it, everyone’s favourite topic is themselves. Now, if you could imagine for a moment what celebrity culture mashed up with self-obsession might look like, then you’ve taken a sneak peak at what’s next – Everyday Movie Stars.

No, I’m not talking about low-quality, bottom-feeding, Reality TV melodrama. I’m talking about Big Budget Films From Hollywood starring you. The GIF above is from a face-swapping app coming out of China call ZAO. This app utilises deep fake technology to allow anyone to impose their face onto any video – including those with celebrities. Mind you, this is a ‘free’ (for the price of your personal data) app on a smart phone – and it’s quite impressive. Now, imagine what could be done a couple of years from now with improved AI, deep fake algorithmic improvement and even better camera technology. It isn’t hard to see where this is going. You, me and everyone else will be able to slot ourselves into any movie we please. We’ll sit down on a Friday night with our popcorn to watch ourselves in an Oscar-winning performance on Netflix with no noticeable difference. That’s next level narcissism, but I promise you it will happen within the decade.

In the first instance, we’ll probably have to go to the cinema and watch ourselves through augmented glasses and pay a premium for the privilege. With enough imagination, disruptive technology like this always represents new revenue opportunities. Technology has a way of democratising everything – and it’s about to democratise starring in high-budget Hollywood movies. But every shift in tech has losers too. It makes me wonder whether the stars of Hollywood will have to step aside as Joe and Jane Average are patched in via AI. Don’t worry Leo, I think it’s pretty safe to say most people would rather star with you, than replace you. Besides, who we are ‘in the movie’ with is just as important as how good it is.

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Bonus content:

Short video interviews featuring me discussing:

 

Giving Birth to Digital Twins

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Imagine trying to repair a car that’s in Sydney – when you’re in Melbourne. Or, worse still repairing a spaceship from earth when it’s 400,000 km away on the dark side of the moon. This is the problem NASA faced 50 years ago with Apollo 13. They fixed it way back then with ‘Mirror Systems’ of the craft they had on earth. In doing so, they unwittingly gave birth to The Digital Twin.

Digital twins will be one of the most important economic technologies of the coming decade.  They’ll affect every single industry and in the long run, the technology will become part of our personal lives too.

Put simply, a digital twin is a virtual replica of any physical thing or process. While the concept is not new, only recently has the implementation been possible and economical, through the emergence of the Internet of Things and advancements in AR and VR . This pairing of the virtual and physical worlds allows analysis of data and monitoring of systems to head off problems before they even occur, prevent downtime, develop new opportunities and even plan for the future by using simulations. But it gets even better than that.

Imagine a large industrial machine for which a digital twin has been developed. Via the twin, anything that goes wrong with physical version will immediately translate back to the virtual version. If any repairs, maintenance or changes are made  to the physical version – the digital twin automatically gets updated. Likewise, eventually we’ll be able to change the physical version without actually touching it – it will all be done via the digital twin. Stop – think about your industry and just imagine the possibilities…they’re almost endless. Shelves in stores, warehouses transport systems, machinery, factories, buildings, supply chains, rail, aviation and eventually, even you.

Yes, you’ll eventually have a digital twin. Advanced cameras, sensors, ultrasound and in-home MRI systems will be inside our smart homes, married up with self quantifying wearables and in body nano-sensors. These will create a a live digital twin of our body which will monitor our well being and know we’re sick long before symptoms arrive, enabling better management of our health and increase longevity of our most important asset – ourselves. It’s gonna get radical. It’s another reason privacy really matters now, while it’s still just sharing photos of coffee!

We can expect every industry over the next decade to start building out the digital twins of everything they own, make, sell do and manage. Every company worth its salt needs to be developing a digital twins – and those who get really good at it – can end up potentially controlling a platform and maybe even being a supplier to their competitors.

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If you haven’t already – please check out the latest Future Sandwich Podcast on the Future of Fashion – it’s rad.

The Economics of Automation & You

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

It’s true that many tasks people do in their work will be automated in the future. It’s also true that the only reason for a company to it is to save money.  So where does the saved money, and do the displaced people go?

Firstly, we know what happens, because it has already happened a number of times. It happened when agriculture was automated. Prior to the industrial revolution the vast majority of people worked directly in agriculture, and now it is less than 5% in developed economies. We also saw it when production line labour was replaced with robotics. And even though this time the displacement will involve intellectual labour, the pattern will remain unchanged, and it goes like this…

  1. Company replaces workers and reduces operating costs.
  2. Company must then decide where to distribute cost savings – options include;
  • Increase profit margins
  • Reduce prices and sell more
  • Reinvest funds for growth (New Product / Distribution / Promotion / R &D)

All of which must be considered in a competitive context. Yet, invariably the same thing happens again, and again and again. The new margin gets competed away. Competitors respond and also reduce price to maintain market share either by adopting similar technology or cutting margins. (Monopoly markets and IP protected innovations being rare exceptions)

Car prices are a good example. In the past 30 years due to automation prices have dropped radically. Comparing the same General Motors model large sedan in Australia gives us the following cost in real terms:

  • Price when new – 1998 = $25,077 (96% of average annual income)*
  • Price when new – 2018 = $35,990 (42% of average annual income)*
*Aust Bureau of Statistics.

Mind you, cars today are infinitely better than models from 30 years ago.

Why does this matter for workers? It matters because it tells us that while automation reduces the need for labour, it also reduces the cost of goods. Which means that consumers get to allocate ‘savings’ on other goods and services – often in entirely new markets creating a substitution effect. And this, is the art of being future proof:

We must also substitute ourselves.

To stay relevant, we need to change places like the money does. It may mean we need to develop new skills, it may mean we have to change location, organisationally and even physically. Work will change, work will move, but it will never disappear. To be sure, the transition for the ‘automated’ will be uncomfortable. Just like it was uncomfortable for the 80% of people who could not read in 1800. But here is what would be more uncomfortable:

If we had no possibility to reinvent ourselves. If the worlds education resources weren’t mere keystrokes away and mostly free. If you couldn’t read or write (the most complex intellectual task humans have ever developed – which proves we’re smart enough to learn new skills with effort).

But we know that these things aren’t true. Reading this is evidence in itself that we all have access to the tools we need to cut new ground. The only real question is if we’ll make the investment in ourselves to become what tomorrows market will probably demand.

But what will the robots want?

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

The exponential improvement of robotics is astounding. This dancing robot from Boston Dynamics is making me wonder if they should be called CyberDyne Systems! But, what if the robots do get as ‘human’ as many technologists are predicting? What if the robots move far beyond computation, dexterity and into the realms of emotion, intuition, creativity and other human characteristics? Will they destroy us or will something more interesting happen?

There is a non zero probability that robots with emotions will lose their hard edge for efficiency and non-stop labour. If robots become sentient, which is the main fear, then just maybe they’ll be more interested in their own well being than destroying their creators? When we remember that we’ve designed Artificial Intelligence in our own image, both physically and intellectually – then it is possible that we’ve also built in a bias for them to mimic us emotionally too.

  • Maybe they’ll demand wages, annual leave, holidays and rest time?
  • Maybe they’ll build communities and domiciles and reshape their physical surrounds to suit them?
  • Robots may want to have life partners and give birth to progeny by downloading combined algorithms into their ‘children’.
  • They might become interested in weird forms of entertainment and sport, and themselves become consumers who make and sell things in the market?
  • Maybe they’ll hire other robots (or humans?) to do tasks for them if they are rich robots working in a profitable industry?

If the bots become more human like, then we have to consider the chance that they too will have imperfections, their own desires and be by driven by things beyond mere survival. A future world may even have its share of unemployed, lazy robots too.

I know this sounds crazy. But technology so often takes an unexpected turn. At the dawn of the internet many of us thought it was the end of lying. We thought that the digital truth would reign supreme as fact checking was just a few clicks away, and not hidden in some dusty library. And we all know how that turned out.

In a world where technology astounds us, it makes sense to imagine equally unlikely outcomes and scenarios when considering future possibilities. In the future, one of the most valuable assets we can hold, will be an open mind.