Danny Rehr
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AI Will Be Able To Do This

AI Will Be Able To Do This

Jan 06, 2023

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash.

When I was a kid, my dad made a prediction. There'd be a computer on every student's desk by the time my children were my age.

He wasn't far off. While I never had children, students these days have miniaturized computers in their pockets, purses, backpacks, and even individually issued by their schools.

I am older than my dad was when he foretold the future. A futurist I am not. But, let me chance a guess on the future of business here. Doing so is not just for fun. (…although, it is!) I want to bring to light the immense power of interdisciplinary thinking.

Prediction: Operations, marketing, finance and the like will all be commoditized.

I predict artificial Intelligence, or AI, will administer businesses in the future - no not just automate this or that, but administration and, to a degree, execution. Computers will barter with one another in association with owners.

Like a self-driving car for which only an address triggers the trip, the machine will do the rest. Employees, like "drivers" of self-driving cars, will set the initial target. Thereafter, the word employee will be watered down to a hodgepodge of automation and people. Certain levers will be available to steer, slow and accelerate as might be determined humanly necessary. Additional resources may hitch a ride themselves (AI) and be invited (people).

Secondarily, I think individuals or groups of people will one day be able to pluck businesses of their choice as today one might an apple from a tree, or a product from a grocery store shelf. Computers are getting to be so ‘smart’ that they’ll handle the recipe, the ingredients, the procurement, the cooking and, if need be, finding the consumers.

Of course, humans will still consume business output as they do travel by self-driving cars, and meal preparation. The idea of value will have to change significantly in order for this new, automated market to exist. Why go places? Why that food? What business outcome?

Scenario Planning

My prediction is a form of scenario planning. From Paul J. H. Schoemaker’s 1995 MIT Sloan Management Review article, ‘Scenario Planning: A Tool for Strategic Thinking’:

…scenario planning attempts to capture the richness and range of possibilities, stimulating decision makers to consider changes they would otherwise ignore. At the same time, it organizes those possibilities into narratives that are easier to grasp and use than great volumes of data. Above all, however, scenarios are aimed at challenging the prevailing mind-set. [1]

Got it. Prediction. Scenario planning. So what made me think of this?

AI In Music

A guitar could show up in a metal song, a folk song or a rap song. In fact, Portland, Oregon-based rap artist, Vontaye, has guitar tracks in his album I.D.W.D.Y.

When I asked him recently about the tracks, he told me. Vontaye doesn't play guitar. He digitally creates the sounds.

Vontaye may even be behind the times. AI, right now, can not simply imitate musical sounds; it will create the very music without human intervention.

“AI will be able to do this.” - Rick Beato [2]

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash.

A terrific music-oriented YouTube channel, Rick Beato, is on my subscription list. An upload this week (link) got me thinking about AI and my scenario planning business prediction.

When I recently interviewed Billy Corrigan of Smashing Pumpkins, he had this to say about artificial intelligence creating original music.

‘AI systems will completely dominate music. The idea of an intuitive artist beating an AI system is going to be very very difficult.’

Music and business have a lot in common. They’re both art and science. They’re nuanced. Strategically, they depend on choices, frameworks of integration of infinite variables, and uniqueness.

That last sentence describes a piece of music as well as it does a business. The marketplace determines new entries, winners and losers. That’s more similarities still.

In music there have been infinite compositions—happening now, in the past, and assuredly into the future—across time, cultures and consumers. So if a piece of music can be autogenerated, why not a business?

Interdisciplinary Thinking

Photo by Freddy G on Unsplash.

Merriam-Webster defines interdisciplinary as “involving two or more academic, scientific, or artistic disciplines.” [3] My prediction involves several disciplines: technology, business, industry, economics and norms or customs are just some.

The power drawn from interdisciplinary thinking is articulation of vision, scenario, application of what’s known, and creativity. For me, today, this blog post now exists.

What can you do with interdisciplinary thinking?

What can be done in your workplace, market or industry with the prospect of artificial intelligence?

How might your life and the lives of your employees improve by poking holes in the status quo?


[1] Schoemaker, Paul J. H. “Scenario Planning: A Tool for Strategic Thinking.” MIT Sloan Management Review, vol. 36, no. 2, Jan. 1995, p. 27. sloanreview.mit.edu, https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/scenario-planning-a-tool-for-strategic-thinking/. Accessed 14 April 2021.

[2] How Auto-Tune DESTROYED Popular Music. 2023. www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IV29YNTH3M. Accessed 3 Jan 2023.

[3] Definition of INTERDISCIPLINARY. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/interdisciplinary. Accessed 5 Jan. 2023.

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