Platforms as Spirals of
Applied Synthetic Intelligence
Platforms engage end users on a mind-boggling scale that would be impossible without the automation that their digital interfaces enable. Even more important, though, is the way they use machine learning to make sense of the massive quantities of data from their automated transactions. Machine learning distills those countless individual interactions into abstract mathematical representations of our interactions with the platform.
There’s a strong synergy between our engagement with platforms and the machine learning created by the resulting data. Automation cranks up the scale of engagement, which increases the flow of data, which then fuels more machine learning, and makes the automation smarter and more powerful over time. This positive feedback loop creates an upward spiral in artificial intelligence, but it is narrow in scope: Expedia gets smarter in travel, Spotify in music, and Netflix in shows. Platforms thus represent an extremely effective approach to solving domain-specific problems that relies on an ongoing flow of data from stakeholders.
Like all combinatorial evolutions before it, the platform emerged from a breakthrough in communications technology. In this case, it was the Internet, coupled with software interfaces for coordinating work with external stakeholders. As platform operators made their interfaces increasingly intuitive, it became easier for us to serve ourselves. Without talking to a single employee, we can now use them to search vast repositories of knowledge around the world, watch most any show, or book a flight anywhere we want.
These systems are now transforming into humanity’s primary points of contact with machines. No technology touches more people than the platforms of companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Alibaba. It’s not just a question of breadth, either. Our relationship with these systems is deepening as well. Innovations such as Natural Language Processing and emotion recognition technologies make it far easier to communicate with them. This connection will only deepen with augmented reality systems that overlay virtual information onto physical reality and brain-computer interfaces that communicate directly with our brains.