The Complete B*** S*** Scam of AI, Machine Learning, and Algorithm Spin In Logistics and Trucking.

I’ll make this short. Over the past year I’ve heard every pitch you can imagine on using AI, machine learning (ML), and the all-new “algorithmic learning” secret-sauce for freight brokers, 3PL’s, trucking companies, and shippers – and I’ve never heard such absolute BS in my life from 100% of those making the pitch.

Most of these so called AI experts tell me and my AscendTMS team how their super-special secret sauce is able to make “optimized decisions”, and that they can make them in the blink of an eye, making humans both superfluous and silly.

Look, I have nothing against “if this, then that” type decision making technology (which is already fully embedded into AscendTMS for our users), but don’t try to tell me that your new AI “brain” can take multiple inputs, analyze them PROPERLY and come out with better decisions 100% of the time. You cannot. In reality, it’s closer to 0% of the time.

So, I promised you I'd make this short. With that said, here are the reasons why the AI, ML, and special secret-sauce crowd need to lock themselves back in their smelly bedrooms and stay there until they have something truly valuable to impart upon the logistics and trucking market. 

1. Unless you’ve worked deeply in trucking or logistics for at least 5 years (ideally 10 or more) please don’t tell us how you are going to optimize it. You just don’t know enough of what you are talking about. Theory is for academics. Reality is for those of us that live this life to feed our families and earn a real living.
2. What you might think is optimized isn’t what others will think is optimized. It’s a moving target and subject to interpretation – and it changes. 
3. You simply cannot optimize more than one thing at once. Something will have to take a backseat to something else, which has compounding effects later-on.
4. Whoever decides what the initial optimization “rules” are should to be able to change those rules whenever they need to. Hard coded rules will fail you 99% of the time. Rules need to be flexible and changeable (and, can be changed by mere humans, not just by computer programmers which 99.9% of industry participants simply don’t have access to).
5. Software users with built in “AI” and “ML” need to be able to run “test scenarios” through your purported “intelligence” platform. People will often find that the intelligence (i.e. experience) of a human operator is much better than letting the computer decide.
6. If your “AI solution” needs data to make these decisions, where is all this data coming from? Do you have the rights to get it? Is it real-time data or stale old data? Do you have the authority from people to use their data? What if some of the input data becomes unavailable or worse, it’s bad data? Usually, I find that during these pitches that these experts don’t even own, or have access to, the input data to make the decisions. What good is that???

The bottom line is BE CAREFUL when listening to AI or ML pitches from MIT educated tech-wizard types that haven’t actually worked in trucking or logistics long enough to understand it.

Ask them all the “what if’s” before you jump into these confusing and expensive projects. It all sounds good and cool until a driver calls in and says they are sick, or that their truck broke down, or they are stuck at the last delivery and they are suddenly out of hours, or there's a pandemic, or…well, you get the idea.

You’d need access to a million data inputs (or more) AND also have all of the possible courses of action to take to be truly optimized - and it's only accurate for that particular moment in time. Today, that’s just not possible for most of us unless you can afford IBM’s Watson and have the massive team to run it. You don’t.   

Today, an experienced human can handle and even anticipate the unexpected . A computer will just sit there with its cursor blinking. Dumb, confused, and useless…and definitely NOT intelligent.

Remember caveat emptor? It means buyer beware.

Tim Higham is the CEO of AscendTMS (www.TheFreeTMS.com). He can be reached at https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/tim-higham-0350a03