War of the Systems

Every day you and I have conversations with ‘robots’.

You can tell, it’s the way they speak on the phone without ‘deviation, repetition or hesitation’ (if you know the Radio Show ‘Just a Minute’). It’s just not like we speak as humans, even if we’re reading a script, we do pauses, occasional coughs and so on and of course ‘filler words’.

So why employ a human to answer your phone when you can get ‘AI’ to do it for ‘free’?

Back in 1983 I went on a government sponsored 9 month ‘TOPS’ course to become a ‘Systems Analyst’. (I’d just sold my publishing and printing business in the face of the onslaught of ‘new technology’ which presented itself in those days in the form of ‘desk top printers’.)

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

After 40 years or so I reckon I’m pretty good at analysing and spotting ‘holes’ in all sorts of systems, both technological and human, but now there’s a whole new ball game starting up.

Every day I see and experience ‘system errors’. But what is a ‘system’. Not the academic definition, but usually ‘”the way it works” or “the way we do things around here”.

You and I have ‘systems’ as does everyone, individuals and companies of all sizes. We couldn’t ‘operate’ without them, it’s not just computers which have ‘operating systems’ it’s people as well. My friend Esther Callis once described it as our ‘daily operating system’ (echoing  Microsoft’s ‘DOS’) – it’s what you and I do every day as a matter of course.

Now here’s the thing – the ‘systems’ are taking over. Our personal daily operating systems are being constrained to ‘fit in’ with a multitude of ‘tech’ or ‘AI’ systems which have been put in place, or put themselves in place, to ‘help’ us.

Trouble is most of these systems, in my personal opinion based on 43 years IT experience and at least another 10 of ‘human’ systems before that, are really badly designed and created not from the point of view of whoever is going to use the system but from the perspective of the IT or process ‘designer’ whose concept of what the system is ‘for’ is almost always different, often counter productive, as I learned in my many years as a systems analyst.

So where do we, as humans, go from here?

How can we validate or moderate all this ‘tech’? Systems are now often developed using ‘AI’ but we really do need to validate and verify them with HI (Human Intelligence) rather than just letting them rip, which seems to be what companies and individuals are allowing to happen for various spurious reasons.

If we don’t take control and just (usually for ‘economic reasons’) rely on AI Robots to tell us what to do and when and how to do it – which IS happening – we’ll end up in a world dominated and controlled by technology (aka ‘robots’) which have no idea what a human actually IS, let alone how we operate.

I can help you with this. I’m extremely experienced in analysing systems, both AI and HI, to discover whether or not they’re really meeting your personal or business needs.