A great friend and someone for who I have tremendous respect – David Loseby, shared the following link to a recent McKinsey At The Edge podcast with Lareina Yee talking with Stanford professor Erik Brynjolfsson about Generative AI focusing on the following three points:
- How gen AI differs from previous technological innovations
- Why it will likely augment more jobs than it replaces
- Why keeping humans in the loop is essential
My Initial Take
Continuing to focus typically on the shiny object that is technology – GenerativeAI is like running onto a railroad track to retrieve a shiny quarter, oblivious to the fact that a locomotive is speeding down the rail towards you.
Here are the preliminary thoughts I shared with David to expand on my initial take:
As I am reading through the above – and I will reread it, the McKinsey article brought to mind the following post I wrote in 2009 – https://bit.ly/3v4CZUO
Here is an excerpt:
With the potential for another election being held in the near future, ceding this or any manufacturing capacity, even if it means fighting for what amounts to a lost battle, maybe the only viable option for the current government to stay in power. This effort is made more acceptable given the very real impact on families in which factory closures will result in massive layoffs.
This leads to another important question. Has the government, past and present, done enough to stimulate development and growth (including re-training) in Quaternary sectors to counteract or counterbalance unemployment?
Quaternary Sector: A Natural Progression for a Wealthy Nation?
For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this reference, the Quaternary sector is considered to be an extension of what is referred to as the “three-sector hypothesis of industry.” Developed by Colin Clark and Jean Fourastie, the hypothesis includes the extraction of raw materials (Primary), manufacturing (Secondary), and services (Tertiary).
Under a “general pattern of development,” a wealthy nation progresses through each phase. Effectively managing this progression is critical to what Fourastie referenced in his 1949 publication “The Great Hope of the Twentieth Century” as “the increase in quality of life, social security, blossoming of education and culture, higher level of qualifications, humanization of work, and avoidance of unemployment.”
Because this transitional process spans many years, the groundwork for where we are today was laid a long time ago, through different times and involving many different governments. Therefore, from a political perspective, and in relation to my earlier question, “Has the government done enough to stimulate development and growth (including re-training) through each sector? ” This is truly a bipartisan issue that should not solely rest at the feet of the current administration.
This said, the present government still has responsibilities relative to at least pointing our country in the right direction, beginning with assessing where Canada is in terms of the progression from Primary to Secondary to Tertiary and, of course, Quaternary sectors. The next logical step would be to develop a strategy in which the cost of making the necessary progressive series of transitions is calculated both in the short-term as well as the mid to long-term, keeping in mind that Canada’s rich indigenous resources mean that we will always be somewhat reliant on a model in which the Primary sector will play an important role.
Elkington’s Triple Bottom Line
I have been writing about John Elkington’s seminal 1997 book Cannibals With Forks – The Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business for many years now because I consider his insights to be as relevant – perhaps more so today than when it first came out.
Here is the link to one of my more recent posts on the Procurement Insights blog that explains why we must look beyond the technology to see the bigger picture: What Does Sultan Al Jaber, the President of COP28’s 2023 Comments, and John Elkington’s Seminal 1997 Book Have In Common?
Why do organizations like McKinsey continue to focus on the ever-evolving technology component, e.g., the shiny paper?
After 40 plus years in high-tech and almost as long in procurement, I can say the following with great confidence: “10 to 15 years from now, we will look at today’s technology with the same dismissive attitude we now have for floppy disks, 10GB hard drives, 2400 bpms modems and dot matrix printers.”
Instead, we should stop focusing on using the equation-based technology first model with its “one-track” focus and look at using the agent-based people-process-technology model.
Regarding McKinsey, with DPW Amsterdam happening this week, I can only imagine what’s next on their discussion agenda. Stay tuned.
30
Procurement Insights
Recent McKinsey podcast periously continues to focus on the shiny paper that is GenerativeAI
Posted on October 7, 2024
0
A great friend and someone for who I have tremendous respect – David Loseby, shared the following link to a recent McKinsey At The Edge podcast with Lareina Yee talking with Stanford professor Erik Brynjolfsson about Generative AI focusing on the following three points:
My Initial Take
Continuing to focus typically on the shiny object that is technology – GenerativeAI is like running onto a railroad track to retrieve a shiny quarter, oblivious to the fact that a locomotive is speeding down the rail towards you.
Here are the preliminary thoughts I shared with David to expand on my initial take:
As I am reading through the above – and I will reread it, the McKinsey article brought to mind the following post I wrote in 2009 – https://bit.ly/3v4CZUO
Here is an excerpt:
With the potential for another election being held in the near future, ceding this or any manufacturing capacity, even if it means fighting for what amounts to a lost battle, maybe the only viable option for the current government to stay in power. This effort is made more acceptable given the very real impact on families in which factory closures will result in massive layoffs.
This leads to another important question. Has the government, past and present, done enough to stimulate development and growth (including re-training) in Quaternary sectors to counteract or counterbalance unemployment?
Quaternary Sector: A Natural Progression for a Wealthy Nation?
For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this reference, the Quaternary sector is considered to be an extension of what is referred to as the “three-sector hypothesis of industry.” Developed by Colin Clark and Jean Fourastie, the hypothesis includes the extraction of raw materials (Primary), manufacturing (Secondary), and services (Tertiary).
Under a “general pattern of development,” a wealthy nation progresses through each phase. Effectively managing this progression is critical to what Fourastie referenced in his 1949 publication “The Great Hope of the Twentieth Century” as “the increase in quality of life, social security, blossoming of education and culture, higher level of qualifications, humanization of work, and avoidance of unemployment.”
Because this transitional process spans many years, the groundwork for where we are today was laid a long time ago, through different times and involving many different governments. Therefore, from a political perspective, and in relation to my earlier question, “Has the government done enough to stimulate development and growth (including re-training) through each sector? ” This is truly a bipartisan issue that should not solely rest at the feet of the current administration.
This said, the present government still has responsibilities relative to at least pointing our country in the right direction, beginning with assessing where Canada is in terms of the progression from Primary to Secondary to Tertiary and, of course, Quaternary sectors. The next logical step would be to develop a strategy in which the cost of making the necessary progressive series of transitions is calculated both in the short-term as well as the mid to long-term, keeping in mind that Canada’s rich indigenous resources mean that we will always be somewhat reliant on a model in which the Primary sector will play an important role.
Elkington’s Triple Bottom Line
I have been writing about John Elkington’s seminal 1997 book Cannibals With Forks – The Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business for many years now because I consider his insights to be as relevant – perhaps more so today than when it first came out.
Here is the link to one of my more recent posts on the Procurement Insights blog that explains why we must look beyond the technology to see the bigger picture: What Does Sultan Al Jaber, the President of COP28’s 2023 Comments, and John Elkington’s Seminal 1997 Book Have In Common?
Why do organizations like McKinsey continue to focus on the ever-evolving technology component, e.g., the shiny paper?
After 40 plus years in high-tech and almost as long in procurement, I can say the following with great confidence: “10 to 15 years from now, we will look at today’s technology with the same dismissive attitude we now have for floppy disks, 10GB hard drives, 2400 bpms modems and dot matrix printers.”
Instead, we should stop focusing on using the equation-based technology first model with its “one-track” focus and look at using the agent-based people-process-technology model.
Regarding McKinsey, with DPW Amsterdam happening this week, I can only imagine what’s next on their discussion agenda. Stay tuned.
30
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