BUSINESS AND ECONOMY : AI AND DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY: HOW WE SHOULD LOOK AT IT?

BY ROBIN GHOSH

( FORMER CHIEF ECONOMIST, BENGAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY)

KOLKATA, 24 OCTOBER 2023:

AI and Digital Technology are transforming the way we look and act.

It is affecting our being, the way we think, behave and act.

Devising new methods and systems to do more things in less time. Avoid monotonous tasks and discover data patterns at lightning speed.

All of us must admit that we are living in an era where technology is increasing exponentially.

It is exploding in terms of computing power and availability of data.

The next 5 to10 years, given Moore’s Law, it is going to explode.

We shall see an amazing burst of new technology and systems.

But the crucial question is – can we compete with this technology which is moving at an exponential speed?

It is difficult to understand whether we can match the speed of the technology.

But what we can try:

1. Help to create better lives for people
2. Help to create better organisation
3. Help to create more competition in what we do.

The digital / AI transformation is a dual challenge.

It is building forward and creating backwards.

The first part – building forward means – improving what you are doing now.

This means , in fact, a mission to create a future. It is an experiment with the future. New business models. Drawing a reasonable growth path.

The second challenge is building backwards. This is quite challenging. Working backwards. You invest money, you build a team, you invest time and it fails. How do you treat this failure? The risk management of failure while creating a future is very important.

Next in line is to understand the cost- benefit of AI /Digital transformation.

Technically, there are 3 axis of impact or change by AI:

1 .You can applyAI today in what you are doing and get benefits of cost, quality and time.
An example of this is – against hiring highly paid professionals you can take services of AI based systems in terms of automated algorithms which is cheaper, faster and better.

2 .The other benefit is in terms of ease of buying.

Use of technology to make the lives of the consumer simpler, easier, hassle-free and friendlier. Example Amazon and Netflix.

The third axis is creating a new business model. How do you test them. Need a lot of experiments. And we need a packet of new skills.
The fusion of these 3 skills is the challenge of time. When you are looking at the future – you must upskill your capabilities, your processes, your skills and so on. To conclude: while technology is going to explode in the future, – bringing new and newer devices that have more cognitive, creative and emotional power – we shall also create boundaries and playbooks, rules and guidelines to ensure balance and creativity of the human mind.