Humans and Machines – Clarification

My previous LinkedIn newsletter covered my new book, The Magic Conveyor Belt: Supply Chains, AI, and the Future of Work. In this, I mentioned some of the potential benefits and risks of AI, especially generative AI.

I focused on the main anxiety regarding AI: the fear that the amazing capabilities of generative AI and large language models will take over more and more tasks currently performed by humans, leading to a massive loss of jobs. I did emphasize, however, that at the center of supply chains—past, present, and future—are humans. ?I mentioned that a supply chain is, to quote, “nothing if not vast, complex network of people without whom nothing could ever move from one point in the supply chain to another.”

Many of the readers who commented on the article focused on this point: that Supply chains are basically social networks, and solving problems is often thanks to experienced supply chain executives and managers who can make decisions In a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world. They agreed with my friend Lynn Torrel who commented, “A VUCA world is characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Yet, decisions have to be made and in such a world, the role of people is not likely to be diminished.”

To begin with, I very much appreciate the fact that people (1) read the newsletter, and (2) took the time to comment.

Not only do I completely agree with this view, but I just experienced something personally that strengthened my belief in it. A family member had a medical issue. We got to see a world-renowned specialist in a leading teaching hospital in Boston. He performed an examination using ultrasound and blood tests. ?The ultrasound proved inconclusive, necessitating an MRI. The MRI results came back with the verdict that all was well—there was no problem. However, the specialist still insisted on an operation. When we challenged his opinion, he said that he has been doing this for well over 50 years, and he was convinced that there was a problem. He sent us to the leading surgeon for this issue in Boston. The surgeon examined everything and agreed that an operation was needed.

We obviously faced a tough and anxious decision. As an engineer, I had a very difficult time ignoring the MRI—one of the most advanced medical tools—and relying on the intuition of two medical professionals, as highly regarded as they were. However, after many sleepless nights and more consultations, we decided to go with the experts’ opinions.

To make a long story short, the operation was successful, and indeed it confirmed that there was a problem. In contradiction of the most advanced medical technology out there, trusting human judgment turned out to be the correct course of action.

This example—a real personal case study—demonstrates that there are many, many areas where expert opinion, managerial experience, and human insight will trump machine-based decision-making. It is not clear how good AI will be a decade or two from now, and there may be a time when more decisions will be made entirely by algorithms. But it is hard to imagine a complete takeover of decision-making in today’s (and tomorrow’s) volatile and fast-changing business environment. This is particularly the case with supply chains. Supply chain management is an “outdoor sport” subject to many VUCA elements. It relies on people understanding and knowing other people in other organizations, and appreciating the environment and context under which they operate. It is difficult to imagine reducing the decision-making in global supply chains to a set of computer instructions any time in the foreseeable future—especially when those decisions are critical to the well-being of the business.