Artificial Intelligence - A Retrospective Perspective

My Granny used to tell a story about AI.?

Back in her day, it meant Artificial Insemination: a system designed to improve the breeding stock of farm animals and reduce the number of bulls in the countryside.? The service was provided by what was then known as the AI man. They called into the farm when the cows were ready.?

Her story related to a particular widowed lady farmer, unfamiliar with the new process who, when the AI man arrived on the farm, led him to the shed where the cow was and pointed out the nail on the back of the door where he could hang his trousers. She then said she would “go and put on the kettle, because my late husband Johnny used to love a cup of tea after it”. I often wonder what my granny would think about a satellite guided tractor ploughing the river field with nobody driving it.?

Artificial Intelligence is a continuous improvement process that has existed for years.? Since the invention of the stone axe mankind has applied intelligence to process. It is innate in humans to seek ways to do more in a shorter time and to build tools to alleviate the boredom of repeated processes.

The modern version of this is to make more, make better, make faster and having arrived at a satisfactory level ask again the question: Can we make more? Better? Faster? The answer is always a resounding yes.? This is the cycle of continuous improvement; AI Computer systems are the latest tools enabling that cycle.

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What are the “risks” of A.I. in our businesses.?

There are probably many and I must ask CHAT GPT (other brands are also available) to tell me what they might be. But using my own hard won Experience Intelligence, I imagine that in real terms the risk to most business is losing competitive advantage or process improvement through failing to understand AI and its potential.

Failure to intelligently engage with AI in the organisation. Failure to exploit the opportunity of AI to optimise business processes. Competitors gaining advantage in the market through effective use of AI. Failure to reduce overhead and business process cost using AI. Catastrophic failure of a business process dependant on AI. In the CalQRisk system, there is a risk simply identified as the Failure of a business process.

Artificial Intelligence, like any automation does not get tired and usually the processes driven by that digital intelligence are more stable, more repeatable and the outcomes more certain than those that require manual intervention. Thinking through an Artificial Intelligence risk list in my head, the thought that, “you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t”, occurs. So, to mitigate the risk, an understanding of the capacity of AI to improve your business processes is time well spent.?

I asked my AI system to tell me what the advantages of AI are, and it told me that there are many advantages: It can be used to streamline processes, it saves time, it eliminates biases, it can automate repetitive tasks and it can eliminate repetitive human errors.?I spent most of my career improving processes using Six Sigma, Lean and all the associated tools and methodologies to hunt down and implement continuous improvement programmes wherever cost could be eliminated, or efficiency gained. So was delighted with the response from my new best AI friend.

….I had to ask: What are the disadvantages??

In fairness I got a reasoned answer:? some possible disadvantages are the cost of implementation, lack of emotion, potential human job loss, and lack of creativity or invention.

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Getting back to risk: As I mentioned earlier, there is a repeatable Failure of a Business Process risk in the CalQRisk system.? The question set asks for the key controls and monitoring that could be in place to reduce the risk of a process failure at a generic level. Basically, the same question set can be applied to any business process and from the answers an assessor will get a sense of the key mitigants that are in place and those that could or should be in place. It is one of those risks where there will be levels of detail that can be overlayed or added to the risk assessment depending on the complexity of the process.

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Look at your metrics, what are the top three process that have recurring process weakness? The ones that fail regularly, the ones you get audit findings about most often, the ones that generate the highest number of complaints about. Go through a root cause assessment process and when you find the common cause turn to your Artificial Intelligence, Chat GPT (other brands are also available), describe the issue, and ask for a solution proposal. Every process is made up of a series of connected sub processes and every one of the sub processes is made up of deliberate process steps. Some force or agent causes each process step to be undertaken and the automation of the process step is the essence of Artificial Intelligence.?

I think what is now being packaged as Artificial Intelligence is in fact applied intelligence and accelerated process improvement made possible by the ability to gather data and process it at speeds that inform the next process step almost instantaneously.

I was in an Irish Country Pub for lunch recently and the food was delivered to our table by a robot called Hero, he/she/it introduced him/her/self and invited us to take our plates and thanked us when me/she/we, did.?

Impressive: but I, unable to resist being a smart ass, asked as he/she turned to leave could him/her tell me where the toilet was? He/She/It turned and, in that global Artificial Intelligence accent, told me to go-down-the-corridor-through-the-green-door –the- gents-is-the one-on-the-left.

As we paid the bill to an equally helpful Humanoid, I asked her if the robot was just a tourist attraction? “No, she is great, especially when I am clearing a four or six sitting table, takes all the stuff into the kitchen”. Does he/she/it ever drop anything says I? “Not as often as I do” admits my Humanoid ruefully with a smile, guess who got the tip…

What would my Granny have thought of that?

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This opinion piece was written by Paul O'Brien, Managing Director of CalQRisk