More Business Books ... looking to the future, learning from the past

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE from Harvard Business Review Press is part of a series which also has texts dealing with Blockchain and Cybersecurity. This one, on artificial intelligence (AI) points out that companies that wait to adopt may never catch up and suggests some questions that ALL employees should be able to answer: How does AI work? What is it good at? And what should it never do? The contributors’ experience and background range from academicians (at University of Toronto, MIT, Stanford) to practitioners (at Facebook, Accenture, and more). One, Andrew Ng, currently CEO of Landing AI and who has worked for Baidu, Coursera, and Google Brain describes how to choose your first AI project.  Others write about collaborative intelligence as humans and AI join forces or about the future of using far less data, developing efficient robot reasoning with less reliance on deep learning from patterns. Each essay or reprinted article ends with a useful “takeaways” section. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE focuses on a topic which is highly interesting for many of our students and offers varied perspectives so that our business faculty could choose to incorporate a few selections (e.g., about ethics, bias and lack of transparency or about AI’s varied impact on work) for class readings.

As you may know, we currently have school-based subscriptions to both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. And on Friday both of those papers had stories about comments from Brad Smith. The New York Times said, “Microsoft Corp President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said on Friday that technology companies are likely to change how they moderate online platforms in response to new laws from foreign governments, regardless of whether U.S. lawmakers act to change … U.S. law …” And The Wall Street Journal also discussed ethical issues while mentioning the new book, TOOLS AND WEAPONS by Brad Smith and Carol Ann Browne. It contains a foreword by Bill Gates where he describes this book as “a clear, compelling guide to some of the most pressing debates in technology today.” Smith and Browne subtitled their book “The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age” and they do not shy away from relating events and raising issues associated with Snowden and diplomacy, with facial recognition and artificial intelligence and with social media, surveillance, or personal privacy. As reflected in the duality of the title, TOOLS AND WEAPONS prompts many questions about the concentration of power in corporations (e.g., amount of energy used to power machines) and in governments (e.g., relative to political activism and human rights).

Get informed for these key discussions – and please see a librarian or our ClassLinks page for help activating your digital newspaper subscriptions.  

 

Also of high interest to students will be THAT WILL NEVER WORK by Marc Randolph which deals with “The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea.” Of course, so many students are regular Netflix users and while they will relate to today’s product, they will likely find the company’s transformation over time to be surprising.  In particular, it will be valuable for them to see the frequent fails (such as never realizing the Blockbuster merger) or near failures (deficits and layoffs) that occurred prior to Netflix becoming the force it is today. Hopefully, it is also stimulating for them to think about the process of idea generation (and rejection or modification) as well as needed research on market needs, trends and competition.  Randolph, who co-founded Netflix, also has extensive experience in the entrepreneurship sphere in Silicon Valley.  He writes with an often amusing, very conversational tone, providing in THAT WILL NEVER WORK an inside look at many of the decisions and efforts to adapt as the company moved forward.

The Optimist's Telescope by Bina Venkataraman

THE OPTIMIST'S TELESCOPE by Bina Venkataraman begins with a story about not treating a rash and subsequently having to deal with the effects of a tick bite; as the author says, “Smart people make reckless decisions, despite clear warnings.” Venkataraman, currently director of Global Policy Initiatives at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, explores why “sometimes people, businesses, and communities do avert crisis and act for the sake of the future” when others fail to do so. The author encourages long term thinking versus settling for immediate gratification or short-term decisions. She surveys a variety of case studies, including increased flooding and natural disasters sparked by hurricanes and climate change, or financial decisions, or historical events, like the Cuban Missile Crisis. Our students and teachers will appreciate the comfortable, conversational tone of this text. In one example, the author describes how college students react after seeing virtual reality avatars of their older selves. Later, Venkataraman includes a section on war games that refers to their “long history of shaping military history” and of including a “twist” so as to “explore what decisions they [players] would make when caught by surprise and what potential downside or upside consequences could emerge.” THE OPTIMIST'S TELESCOPE, subtitled “Thinking Ahead in a Reckless Age,” is a thoughtful text worth perusing; it includes detailed notes and a helpful index.

The Warehouse by Rob Hart

THE WAREHOUSE by Rob Hart is a new work of dystopian science fiction which is a LibraryReads selection for August. Set in the near future at a MotherCloud facility where employees live, eat, play and work for credits, there is some corporate espionage underway. Zinnia has been secretly recruited to find the source of the complex’s power and Paxton is a prison security guard and inventor whom she meets on the first day. Much of their orientation is delivered through videos and everyone wears a shirt that reflects their job – red for pickers (order processors), blue for security, green for maintenance, white for managers and so forth.  Work shifts and timing are all controlled centrally – communicated through smart watches called CloudBands which are activated with a fingerprint and track their wearer’s movements, making Zinnia’s task very challenging. Despite the opportunities - cool air, fresh water, a job and place to live - available through Cloud, the atmosphere is menacing; an associate of Paxton’s remarks, “you’ll see there’s the Cloud way of doing things and the right way of doing things. Sometimes those are the same, sometimes they aren’t.” Gibson Wells is the industrialist who heads the company, the monopolist who has overtaken tons of small businesses (including Paxton’s), and corporate lobbyist who has helped push through legislation like the Red Tape Elimination Act and FAA takeover. As Hart indicates in his acknowledgements, this is a thriller with a message about opportunity and about income inequality, essentially an attempt, he hopes, that “nudges us in the right [future] direction.” THE WAREHOUSE received starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. Watch also for the forthcoming movie from Ron Howard and Imagine Entertainment.

The Rationing by Charles Wheelan

THE RATIONING by Charles Wheelan is a fabulous work of political satire set in the near future. The narrator is a scientist who specializes in lurking viruses – generally benign organisms which suddenly become virulent. Some basic science is certainly important to this tale, but there is much more about corporate greed, media manipulation and politics – both domestic and international. The politicians and bureaucrats are referred to only by their titles which, for me, added authenticity to this speculative work. Wheelan’s wry tone and style of writing caused me to almost immediately think of Aaron Sorkin’s West Wing and even more of Allen Drury and his best-sellers, beginning with Advise and Consent. As one quick example, the scientist narrator, preparing to be interviewed on a news show, is told by the Communications Director: “Don’t even listen to the question. When her lips stop moving, you give the answer you want to give.” THE RATIONING is one of those stories about complex real world events where every time the situation seems evenly remotely under control, yet another aspect has the potential to become a crisis or another unintended consequence becomes apparent. Wheelan alluded to numerous “what ifs” as he related this detailed, entertaining account of “utter craziness” as America faced The Outbreak.

If Charles Wheelan’s name seems familiar, it should; he is the author of several non-fiction titles, including Naked Economics which, though published several years ago, is still required summer reading for our AP Economics classes. I can’t wait to see what Wheelan writes next and appreciated his mention in the Acknowledgments of a local independent bookstore, The Book Bin in Northbrook. THE RATIONING received a starred review from Kirkus.