Craftsmanship refers to something made with the highest quality. It requires a distinct mindset and approach. Values like durability, integrity, and calling are often associated with craftsmanship.
In this story, AI enhances the notion of craft for a Carlsberg brewing team, extending capabilities that have been practiced for centuries.
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Photo Credit: Hiro, Robotic Hand, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1996 from the Pace/MacGill Gallery
Really interesting article explaining three laws of artificial intelligence from The Third Law by George Dyson. Adapted from POSSIBLE MINDS: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI edited by John Brockman.
It is entirely possible to build something without understanding it. We shouldn’t be asking “can we” we should first ask “should we?”
The article’s premise is that we spend too much time focusing on machine intelligence and not enough about “self-reproduction, communication, and control.” Dyson argues that the next revolution in computing will be signaled by the rise of analog systems over which digital programming no longer has control (reminds me of the ending of Battlestar Galactica). Nature’s response to those who believe they can build machines to control everything will be to allow them to build a machine that controls them instead.
The three laws of artificial intelligence listed in the article are:
Ashby’s law, after cybernetician W. Ross Ashby, author of Design for a Brain, stating that any effective control system must be as complex as the system it controls.
The second law, articulated by John von Neumann, states that the defining characteristic of a complex system is that it constitutes its own simplest behavioral description. The simplest complete model of an organism is the organism itself. Trying to reduce the system’s behavior to any formal description makes things more complicated, not less.
The third law states that any system simple enough to be understandable will not be complicated enough to behave intelligently, while any system complicated enough to behave intelligently will be too complicated to understand.
The author continues:
The third law offers comfort to those who believe that until we understand intelligence, we need not worry about superhuman intelligence arising among machines. But there is a loophole in the third law. It is entirely possible to build something without understanding it. You don’t need to fully understand how a brain works in order to build one that works. This is a loophole that no amount of supervision over algorithms by programmers and their ethical advisers can ever close. Provably “good” A.I. is a myth. Our relationship with true A.I. will always be a matter of faith, not proof.
[ from BrainPickings ]
Summary: Trees dominate the world’s the oldest living organisms. Since the dawn of our species, they have been our silent companions, permeating our most enduring tales and never ceasing to inspire fantastical cosmogonies. Hermann Hesse called them “the most penetrating of preachers.” A forgotten seventeenth-century English gardener wrote of how they “speak to the mind, and tell us many things, and teach us many good lessons.”
Illustration by Arthur Rackham for a rare 1917 edition of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. (Available as a print.)
But trees might be among our lushest metaphors and sensemaking frameworks for knowledge precisely because the richness of what they say is more than metaphorical — they speak a sophisticated silent language, communicating complex information via smell, taste, and electrical impulses. This fascinating secret world of signals is what German forester Peter Wohlleben explores in The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate (public library).
This is a must-read if you love trees! Science reveals what we knew all along...trees have awareness and intelligence.
Christine Haskell, PHD has built her practice on credible, published research and data. In the Research Series, you’ll find highlights, shareable statistics, and links to the full source material.
After 20+ years in tech, the last ten laying front-end process and back-end infrastructure enabling a data-driven culture at MSFT, I had a few observations that made me question the work I was doing. The more available and accurate the data became, the more dependent on data people became. The result? leaders made decisions that doubled down on investing in known quantities like Office and Windows, missing opportunities to dominate and lead in several growing areas of technology. That’s not just my opinion. Those are facts.
There was little awareness, attention or focus paid to subjective skills like having good judgment, sound evaluation skills, or what psychology refers to as “other ways of knowing.” At that time, qualitative data was never as highly regarded as qualitative data.
Cultures that claim to be data driven often let other skills go under-utilized. They become preoccupied with the lure of predictability—the holy grail of business management. They seek data for the smallest of decisions. A study from MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory claims to have identified the elusive group dynamics that characterize high-performing teams. Looking at two separate call centers, researchers found that patterns of communication explained why performance varied so widely among seemingly identical teams in that bank’s call center. The best predictors of productivity were a team’s energy and engagement outside formal meetings. Drawing on that insight, they advised the center’s manager to revise the employees’ coffee break schedule so that everyone on a team took a break at the same time. That would allow people more time to socialize with their teammates, away from their workstations. Leaders are starting to rely on spreadsheets and gadgets to give them a ‘God’s-eye view of human behavior.’
Did we really need to invest in expensive, predictive analytics to tell us that those blessed with the energy, creativity, and shared commitment far surpass other teams? Not only was this dynamic uninspiring to me, I felt we were moving in the wrong direction. That began my journey away from what felt like technology for technology’s sake, and toward questions of self-awareness, critical thinking, and ethical responsibility.
Initially, this led me to study applied behavioral science, sustainability, and leadership, and psychology at the graduate level. A common thread through all the literature, for me, was: values. Our lived values are the foundation of our decision making and ultimately dictate the kind of lives we lead, how happy we allow ourselves to be and become, and achieve.
Values, whether we are aware of them or not, guide our decisions.Our lives are punctuated by experiences, decisions, or influences. How we respond to those events directs the course of our lives, and in particular, when we find ourselves at a significant choice point, our upbringing can have an enduring influence on the work we choose and our larger career decisions. What we subconsciously learn from our parents plays an important role in how we think about and manage those career decisions.
We are on a path toward the fullest expression of ourselves, whether we know it or not. If we are not aware, honest, or clear about our values (i.e., how we got them and what they are), it is reflected in all of our decisions–and subsequently, our work. Rather than thinking aspirationally of our values, our decisions under pressure are the most honest reflection of our values and ourselves. We are deeply shaped by values and how well we live them.
Both people and organizations lose their way by losing touch with their core values. As individuals, we experience dead ends. Sometimes this is in the form of unfinished projects. More extreme versions of this state result in some form of midlife crisis. I prefer to call this a midlife crossroad because not all “crises” are negative–some can be incredibly fulfilling. However, the path toward closing the gap of who you thought you were and the beliefs you relied on, and who you are now and the beliefs you hold now, can be both painful and incredibly enlightening.
Self-awareness, deliberate practice, and experimentation are the path forward. Practicing your values in a consistent way brings meaning to your work and life and enables you to be congruent. Lived andpracticed, our values guide the expression of our work.
Most people (~70%) are unengaged by their work, yet they are seeking more skills. Two-fifths say their senior leaders prioritize employee engagement, and just 28% said their managers are highly skilled at fostering engaged individuals and teams.
Engagement and ability to fail are linked. Failure and the concept of failing fast have become chic to talk about again. Yet, too often, we ask people to sign up to fail at something they don’t care about. If you agree to fail at something, and I do believe an agreement is required to avoid dysfunction and abuse, you must care about something enough and know why you care about it.
And last, that learning is truly ongoing. We learn a lot, especially when we are interested in the subject. But to retain and integrate requires ongoing practice. An example of my (almost) daily practice re-explores #NotesFromMyYogaJournal.
When I left my job in 2014 to complete my doctorate in Industrial Psychology, people thought I was crazy. I was leaving a stable job and steady paycheck, for what?
Work I care about. Work I experiment with and fail in order to learn. Work where I can take responsibility for my own learning, development, and advancement.
Today, I am working harder now than I ever have in my life–and I’ve worked hard my whole career. I’m learning in a way I was never able to do in my former career, and that is not because I left the corporation. It is because I learned how to create my own safety and take responsibility for my own learning with hyperfocus–two skills we are not taught in schools and do not learn in workplace training. Making these skills available to people has become the focus of my current work.
To both earn and manage the kind of responsibility technology like artificial intelligence will put upon us, we need to start training our minds to reduce the inner chatter. We need to find our Craft, manage feelings v why we continue to develop a feel for our work and engage in the kinds of bold experiments that will solve the problems of tomorrow. We need to learn to contemplate, comprehend, and respond more and react less. We need to not only solve problems, but we also need to find them.
The future of work depends on the state of the human mind, specifically our awareness, ability to reason and contend with values, ethics, and great paradoxes.
Christine Haskell, PhD is a writer and consultant helping leaders increase their attachment to their work to lead with greater effectiveness.
UPDATE: this post has been updated to reflect the latest engagement trends, which still hold at 70% un-engaged.