Embracing Autonomous Transformation: A Human-Machine Synergy With (Generative) AI
Discover How Leaders Can Prepare Their Workforce For The Future Of Work
On May 9, Brian Evergreen (Founder & CEO, The Profitable Good Company & Author of “Autonomous Transformation”) joined me on “What’s the BUZZ?” and shared how autonomous transformation is reshaping our businesses, changing our society, and redefining the future of work. Learn how machine teaching and generative AI are creating a synergy between humans and machines, paving the way for new opportunities. Brian shared key insights of this new era, where technology and human expertise go hand in hand to drive innovation and growth. Here’s what we talked about…
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The Evolution from Digital to Autonomous Transformation
In our digital age, companies are still in the process of digital transformation, but a new term, autonomous transformation, is emerging. Autonomous transformation represents a new era of change for businesses and society. The definition of transformation is to alter the nature and structure of something, improving it in the process. Digital transformation sometimes does not fully transform the process or structure of delivering value to clients or the world. That's where the term digital reformation comes in, which refers to significant improvements without changing the structure of value delivery.
For instance, transitioning from an analog to a digital model dramatically enhances the process, but doesn't necessarily transform it. Digital transformation, however, does change the structure, as illustrated by the streaming revolution led by Netflix. As for autonomous transformation, it involves leveraging robots and machines to vastly improve work efficiency. Yet, a full-blown autonomous transformation, which would alter the way value is delivered to clients or consumers, is yet to hit the market.
The Role of Generative AI in Autonomous Transformation
Autonomous transformation doesn't mean replacing human jobs with machines; it's about assigning repetitive work to machines, allowing humans to focus on more creative tasks. In this context, generative AI plays a crucial role in machine teaching, a new approach where machines are taught based on human expertise rather than patterns in data.
Much like teaching kids the principles of chess rather than memorizing patterns, machine teaching instills principles and guidelines to machines. With this approach, machines can handle a broader range of use cases even when there's no data to learn from. Generative AI plays an essential role in machine teaching, allowing humans to transfer their expertise to machines in a more natural way. It also improves human-machine interaction, enabling machines to understand and respond to human inquiries better.
“Generative AI will be very valuable for allowing human machine interaction. So, if you have machines […] navigating somewhere in a public space, for those humans to be able to come up and talk to it and leveraging generative AI to be able to answer questions and interact.“
— Brian Evergreen
Leadership in the Age of Autonomous Transformation
In a factory setting, for instance, machine teaching allows humans to create guidelines for machine behavior, providing them with the expertise needed to perform specific tasks, like managing an extruder in manufacturing. This approach enables workers to shift from operations to stewardship roles.
The discussion on human-machine interaction is currently centered around three perspectives: job protectionism, job fatalism, and job pragmatism. While job protectionism seeks to safeguard existing jobs at all costs and job fatalism predicts total job takeover by machines, job pragmatism acknowledges that tasks and jobs will change due to automation. This shift will free up time for workers, giving leaders the opportunity to create new roles for them, retaining their knowledge and maintaining the company culture. Failure to do so is a failure in leadership, not technology.
Summary
The digital era is evolving into an age of autonomous transformation, redefining the way businesses operate and deliver value. As machines take over repetitive work, humans are free to focus on more creative, high-value tasks. This shift, driven by the principles of machine teaching and the use of generative AI, forms the core of autonomous transformation. However, the ultimate responsibility lies with leaders, who must create new opportunities for their workforce, ensuring they retain their invaluable knowledge and contribute to the organizational culture.
How are you preparing your workforce for the era of autonomous transformation?
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What’s next?
Appearances
June 8 - Panel discussion with Transatlantic AI eXchange on Web 3.0 Generative and Synthetic Data Application
Join us for the upcoming episodes of “What’s the BUZZ?”:
May 23 - Rod Schatz, Data & Digital Transformation Executive, will join as we explore how you can Prepare Your Business Against AI-generated Misinformation.
June 8 - Ravit Dotan, Director The Collaborative AI Responsibility Lab at University of Pittsburgh, will join when we cover how responsible AI practices evolve in times of generative AI.
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Together, let’s turn hype into outcome. 👍🏻
—Andreas