INGENIEUR
hard to follow. Challenging the almighty status
quo to do what experts say can’t be done isn’t for
the faint of heart. But that’s exactly what these
founders did, ignoring the advice of the many and
trusting their own focus group of one — or two.
The pundits thought Steve Jobs was absolutely
insane to get into the dog-eat-dog cell phone
business. In 2007, John Dvorak put into words
what everyone was thinking: “Apple should pull
the plug on the iPhone,” he wrote, as “there is no
likelihood” it will be successful. He later called the
iPad tablet a “giant iPod Touch” that would have
nominal market impact.
Today, the iPhone is undoubtedly among the
most successful products ever, generating more
revenue than nearly every S&P 500 company. The
iPad-dominated tablet market surpassed PCs in
2015, just five years after its introduction.
And let me tell you — everyone thought Apple
was crazy when it opened its first retail stores in
2001. Today, Apple stores are the most lucrative
retail space in the U.S.
What is your Digital Quotient – McKinsey
We’ve all heard about the IQ. But it’s time to start
talking about our Digital Quotient (or DQ). This is
about developing the kind of intelligence needed
to be effective in the business world. Now, this
isn’t news in boardrooms around the world. You’d
be hard pressed to find a business leader who
isn’t trying to figure out how to take advantage of
all the digital trends today. But the question that
stymies companies is what should they actually
do? Or more accurately, what should they do to
turn digital into a real source of value.
With the pace of change in the world
accelerating around us, it can be hard to remember
that the digital revolution is still in its early days.
Massive changes have come about since the
packet-switch network and the microprocessor
were invented nearly 50 years ago. A look at the
rising rate of discovery in fundamental R&D and in
practical engineering leaves little doubt that more
upheaval is on the way.
For incumbent companies, the stakes continue
to rise. From 1965 to 2012, the “topple rate,” at
which they lose their leadership positions, increased
by almost 40% as digital technology ramped up
competition, disrupted industries, and forced
businesses to clarify their strategies, develop new
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capabilities, and transform their cultures. Yet the
opportunity is also plain. McKinsey research shows
that companies have lofty ambitions: they expect
digital initiatives to deliver annual growth and cost
efficiencies of 5 to 10% or more in the next three to
five years.
Now it’s time to prepare for the Machinocene -
BOAO
Human-level intelligence is familiar in biological
hardware – you’re using it now. Science and
technology seem to be converging, from several
directions, on the possibility of similar intelligence
in non-biological systems. It is difficult to predict
when this might happen, but most artificial
intelligence (AI) specialists estimate that it is more
likely than not within this century.
Freed of biological constraints, such as
a brain that needs to fit through a human
birth canal (and that runs on the power of a
mere 20W lightbulb), non-biological machines
might be much more intelligent than we are.
What would this mean for us? The leading AI
researcher Stuart Russell suggests that, for
better or worse, it would be ‘the biggest event
in human history’. Indeed, our choices in this
century might have long-term consequences
not only for our own planet, but for the galaxy
at large, as the British Astronomer Royal Martin
Rees has observed. The future of intelligence in
the cosmos might depend on what we do right
now, down here on Earth.
Should we be concerned? People have been
speculating about machine intelligence for
generations – so what’s new?
Well, two big things have changed in recent
decades. First, there’s been a lot of real progress
– theoretical, practical and technological – in
understanding the mechanisms of intelligence,
biological as well as non-biological. Second, AI has
now reached a point where it’s immensely useful
for many tasks. So, it has huge commercial value,
and this is driving huge investment – a process
that seems bound to continue, and probably
accelerate.
One way or another, then, we are going to be
sharing the planet with a lot of non-biological
intelligence. Whatever it brings, we humans face
this future together. We have an obvious common
interest in getting it right. And we need to nail it