Contemplating changes

The below article appears in Freight & Trade Alliance (FTA) April '23 edition of Across Borders and can be viewed here

Anyone else a little weary? I must admit that this morning when I remembered that I had to write this article, I considered plugging it into the Chat AI thingy and letting it do the work for me. But that would be cheating (and besides, the company I work for seemed to have blocked it at the moment).

When one of my relatives told me about this Chat GPT when it first came out, it was around the ability of it to change the script of the Matrix to have Keanu Reeves talk like a surfer dude. He was super impressed and very insistent that I give it a go, so give it a go I did. The first thing I typed in was “write a three-hundred-word article of the challenges of international shipping and logistics in 2023”. As Marvin (that’s what I am calling AI – you Douglas Adams readers out there know what I am talking about), spat out narrative at around a line every three seconds, I was not only impressed but philosophically confronted about what was a pretty spot-on narrative. I mean it was lacking my cynicism and metaphorical references, but by and large it covered what I would have touched on regarding subject matter. Delays, weather events, virus stuff (biological and electronic), global trading shifts, workforce issues etc. Considering that Marvin’s disclaimer says it only takes information from data before 2021 it wasn’t a bad summation of the situation. Marvin is also quite handy for other things as well. I had a play around with job descriptions (say, “import Freight Forwarder operator”) and it came up close to what someone would write up these days. ?I asked it if I had cartons at a declared L x W x H and weight, how many could I fit into a standard 40’ HC container? It gave me the answer and even, rather condescendingly actually, reminded me to not forget to allow some space for air and doors. All of this is very interesting and fun to play with of course, but when there is a real issue, Marvin lacks the network of people that can step up and fix problems as they occur – so there is still some room for us humans…..for a while anyway.

Whilst we are contemplating changes, I find myself these days talking about (and thinking about) so many other evolutions afoot in our world currently. As I write this article, I have two events coming up that are on my mind in this regard. The first event is in three days’ time (from time of writing) where I am flying to Canberra as a panel member of the National Freight and Supply Chain Strategy Freight Industry Reference Panel for the Australian Government. At this day long meeting we will be discussing the key priorities in freight and supply chains for Australia. It is quite mind boggling actually and I have been spending some time speaking with industry colleagues to ascertain their views to see if they correlate with mine – by and large they do thank goodness. From where I am sitting it seems that most people are trying to forget a virus that shut the planet down just a little bit ago, the outcomes of that scenario are still very much playing out. Inflation, workforce disruption, global supply chain changes are all part of our industry’s day to day juggling act. Regardless of your political or ideological views it would be a brave person to place their hand on their heart and say the weather events of our planet are not something we need to consider immediately when it comes to planning. When you start to see second hand Tesla’s in your local car yard (In Launceston, #tasmania no less) you know an energy transformation is rapidly coming our way. There are departments and committees and advisors galore in this space with papers written regularly on what is coming – much of the narrative seems to be filled up with questions rather than answers, or generic answers that could be used for all industries (freight and supply chain are not alone with the topics I raised above – indeed it complicates matters more as industries in Australia compete with each other to push their issues to the front of the line). The second event is in two weeks’ time when I partake in the “Shitbox Rally” from Rockhampton to Hobart (over 3,500KM’s) via the Artesian Basin over seven days in an old Ford Econovan with over 550,000kms on the clock to raise funds for cancer research. I expect I will get to witness firsthand the weather events of the last few years on our regional roads and I know for absolute certain that Marvin will be completely useless out there.

(Additional note - this article was written early March - the rally is now complete and was a complete success with over A$2.1 million raised for Cancer Research...not one bit of AI in the event).