Future Ready Digest Vol. 2 No. 4 - 21st January 2025

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In this edition: algorithmic political control and the morbidly rich, the WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025, the critical importance of philosophy in AI development, the end of an era for SaaS, don't ignore analytical AI, an introduction to machine learning, ChatGPT moves towards being Agentic.

“Want near absolute power in America with the approval of at least half of the American public? Tweak the top-secret algorithms that determine what posts you see most often on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X, and TikTok; algorithmically filter the search results of Google and ChatGPT; and control the content of The Washington Post."

Given the hype about AI Agents, a timely "Future of Jobs" report from the World Economic Forum. "Over 2025 to 2030, job creation and destruction due to structural labour-market transformation will amount to 22% of today’s total jobs. This is expected to entail the creation of new jobs equivalent to 14% of today’s total employment, amounting to 170 million jobs. However, this growth is expected to be offset by the displacement of the equivalent of 8% (or 92 million) of current jobs, resulting in net growth of 7% of total employment, or 78 million jobs."?Fortune Magazine?reports, "41% of bosses worldwide have plans to fire you in the next 5 years and replace you with AI.”

A future-ready skills development and labour market strategy is urgently required.

Something to think about! Software may already have eaten the world, but AI is now eating software. But even as software eats the world and AI gobbles up software, philosophy is now eating AI.

“As a discipline, data set, and sensibility, philosophy increasingly determines how digital technologies reason, predict, create, generate, and innovate. The critical enterprise challenge is whether leaders will possess the self-awareness and rigour to use philosophy as a resource for creating value with AI or default to tacit, unarticulated philosophical principles.”

For me, the key philosophical question is whether we use AI for societal good or profit maximisation for the few. A philosophical approach prioritises the ethical and societal impacts of AI.

The end of an era. This is an interesting take on how AI will transform the SaaS market. “Not the cheap knockoff kind of AI you see in hastily made marketing decks but next-generation, mind-bending, mainstream AI services that empower everyday people to do ‘expert-level’ work without requiring a PhD from MIT. This real AI wave is poised to transform the business world.”

Self-proclaimed AI gurus, please note: Be very clear on the type of AI you are talking about. This paper from MIT Sloan nails it. “Large language models, with their ability to generate humanlike text and assist in everyday tasks, have made generative AI tools like ChatGPT the poster children of artificial intelligence. However, amid the allure of this innovative technology, there lies a significant risk: the potential overshadowing of advanced analytics and traditional AI — analytical AI, for short. Analytical AI has consistently demonstrated its value in enhancing business decisions and processes, yet it risks being neglected in favour of GenAI’s new and exciting capabilities.”

This is a useful read and follow-up to the previous article.

The latest advancements in ChatGPT, including introducing a scheduled tasks feature, reflect the growing trend of AI systems evolving into autonomous agents that can perform complex functions. This could transform how individuals and businesses interact with technology.

You can access our previous Digest below.

As always, comments and feedback are very welcome.

Take care.

Jim H