Category: AI

The digital world – a public nuisance?

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Business, Digital technology, Information Technology, Life, Risk, Science, Technology, Transformation, Wellbeing

The old coin/card ticket machines in the local High Street’s car park have been replaced by swanky touch-screen units that only take contactless payment. To be fair, there’s one new machine in the car park that still purports to take coins and contactless payment, although nobody has so far been able to get it to actually accept coins! There’s something else too. It’s an open-air car park and the screens on the new units are hardly readable on a bright sunny day. The new machines are straightforward to use once you know how, but earlier this week the only functioning machine was the one purporting to take coins as well as contactless payments. There was a queue, which the Badger joined, but the pensioner at the head of the queue was having trouble getting the machine to accept their contactless card payment. Giving up, they tried coins instead, and that didn’t work either. The flummoxed pensioner thought there was something wrong with their bank card. A kind lady stepped in and said she’d pay for the pensioner’s ticket using her own card. That didn’t work either, causing the lady and the pensioner to grumble ‘The digital world is a public nuisance’.

The Badger subsequently cogitated on whether the digital world is indeed a public nuisance. Putting the legalities of what constitutes a public nuisance to one side, whether the digital world’s a nuisance depends on your perspective. Grandparents, parents, young adults, and children have different perspectives, but research across this age spectrum apparently suggests that views are not purely yes or purely no, but definitely not neutral. Many think the digital world enhances social interactions, learning opportunities, business efficiency, innovation, convenience, and so on. However, many believe it’s become a nuisance because a) it’s dominated by self-interested major corporations who put their profits rather than users first, and b) it lessens person to person physical contact, encourages excessive screen time, distorts our sense of reality, erodes personal privacy, is an enormous source of mis and disinformation, and causes mental, health, and behavioural issues in young adults, children, and vulnerable groups.

Does the Badger think the digital world’s a public nuisance? No…but beginning to lean towards yes! No, because a lengthy career in the IT industry showed that in the right hands, with good laws, controls, and ethical and moral human behaviour within acceptable societal norms, the digital world produces enormous benefits and is a good servant to mankind. Why leaning towards yes? Because although the science relating to the digital world’s impact on humanity has been too slow over the last few decades, it’s now confirming that nuisances are real and often harmful. It’s thus reasonable to conclude that mankind is fast becoming a servant to the digital world when it should be the other way round, and that AI is destined to reinforce this in the coming years…

Suppliers, AI, and putting lipstick on a pig…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Information Technology, Procurement, Risk, Sales, Software

While browsing in a Waterstone’s bookshop, the Badger overheard two people talking about a book. One said to the other: ‘They’ve changed the cover from the copy I read years ago’. The other replied: ‘I think they’re putting lipstick on a pig to sell more copies because it’s a difficult read’. The phrase ‘putting lipstick on a pig’ triggered memories of the Badger’s first ever assignment – as a software developer – in the IT industry. The Badger was part of a team developing a software product, and his team leader – a clever guy experienced in product design, development, and also the offerings of competitors – was a frequent user of the phrase. For example, when news arrived that a competitor had vastly improved the user interface to their product, the team leader commented that they were ‘putting lipstick on a pig’ because there was no change to their product’s questionable underlying architecture. Similarly, if someone on the team produced a software subsystem that was full of defects, the team leader would insist on redesign and reimplementation of the subsystem because fixing individual defects was ‘putting lipstick on a pig’ when something was clearly amiss with the original design and coding.

The phrase is widely used to mean that making superficial changes to something may improve its appearance, but any core underlying issues or characteristics remain unchanged (see this neat YouTube item). Throughout his career, the Badger’s heard the phrase used in all kinds of situations by business leaders, line managers, salespeople, delivery and technical people alike. During the late1990s, customer demand for long-established software products to have web user interfaces was growing. The Badger recalls his company’s salespeople clamouring for the firm’s software products to be upgraded, and developers pointing out that this meant a costly overhaul of product architectures which neither the company nor its clients wanted to fund. It was decided that the way forward was bolt-on solutions that looked the part for the end user without really addressing the underlying architectural issues. Internally, the phrase ‘putting lipstick on a pig’ subsequently became commonplace to describe this solution.

Today, of course, AI is sweeping through the IT industry, and most companies have been addressing its impact on their established and installed software products, and their own internal business, development, delivery, and service operations. Why? Because to have a viable commercial future, they must. Every company thus has an AI story for their clients. As a client, however, how do you know that your supplier’s AI product upgrade or new solution isn’t just ‘putting lipstick on a pig’? You don’t, unless you do a rigorous, objective evaluation to fully understand what you are getting and on what basis. Doing proper evaluations, however, has always been good practice when buying things, and it’s even more important today when dealing with suppliers in the AI era…

More STEM-educated MPs needed for effective national leadership

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Education, Engineering, Information Technology, Leadership, Politics, Science, Technology

The lawn’s brown, the flowers and trees look decidedly sad, and there appears to be fewer bumblebees, honeybees, and small birds than usual. There are, however, a greater number and variety of butterflies than normal. These were the Badger’s first thoughts when sitting in the shade contemplating the world after entertaining his grandson at the weekend. His thoughts then wandered into the realities of the current world that his young grandson’s generation face. It’s been an exceptional UK summer, with blue skies and high temperatures across much of the nation. For a nation that is renowned for talking about the weather, the heat brings mixed blessings – there are water shortages, hosepipe bans, and a high risk of destructive vegetation fires. Many people are wringing their hands and banging the climate change drum, but the Badger’s grandson is taking the heatwaves in his stride! He thinks it’s much better having good weather in the school holiday period so that he can be outdoors rather than housebound due to rain and gloom.

The Badger’s thoughts moved onto matters oblivious to his grandson. Things like, for example, the fact that being big and powerful doesn’t mean you’ll succeed (as the Ukraine and Middle East conflicts illustrate), and that with AI the world’s embarked on its most dangerous period of change ever. Whilst there’s much worry due to fossil fuel emissions and climate change, the consumption of resources driven by AI and other technological developments also have major consequences for the planet that hence the future life of the Badger’s grandson’s generation. With a sigh, the Badger’s cogitations concluded that the nature and predisposition of humans, and self-serving leadership dynamics, are at the heart of many of the world’s woes.

The self-serving leadership conclusion prompted the Badger to explore the educational background of the current UK Cabinet. This revealed that only one current UK Cabinet member has studied a STEM subject at university; a situation that’s essentially unchanged from Kier Starmer’s Cabinet. It also revealed (see here) that of the 650 elected Members of the UK Parliament, ~83% have university degrees but only 17% have a STEM degree, a proportion that’s barely changed in 20 years. With ~ 46% of UK undergraduates in the country studying STEM subjects, a measure of 17% suggests significant STEM underrepresentation in the country’s political and governmental circles. No wonder, the Badger mused, that the country has not been firing on all cylinders during this century.

Life today is dominated by science, technology, engineering and maths. In an era of AI and rapid, AI-enabled, science and technological advances, surely there must be more STEM-educated people around the UK Cabinet table for effective national leadership? Of course, there should. Afterall, STEM-educated people, as noted here, base decisions on data and unspun truth, both essential if the nation’s ever to have the leadership needed to get its mojo back…

Want to be an ‘influencer’? Get educated first…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Education, influencers, Information Technology, Life, social media

The Badger recently found himself sympathising with some parents who were stressed-out because their 12-year-old son was being disruptive and problematic at school. The boy has been problematic at school for some time, and none of the measures taken by his parents, or the school, has improved matters. It seems the boy’s issues began when, one way or another, they started using social media heavily. This seems to have significantly influenced his attitude, beliefs, and behaviour as his engagement with content intensified with the passage of time. The boy’s a problem at school because, to use his parents’ words, ‘he doesn’t see why he needs teachers or lessons, because he just wants to be a social media influencer’. The parents are in despair. They think their son is another young victim of the dark side of the last two decades’ social media revolution.

While many families experience similar difficulties, and research (e.g. here) illustrates how digital media affects adolescents, it was the word ‘influencer’ that grabbed the Badger’s attention. The word is flourishing like never before, primarily as a descriptor for someone with a large social media following who earns a living from the content they post. Perhaps the Badger’s a dinosaur, but he’s lost track of the number of people popping up as celebrities on popular television shows because they are ‘an influencer’ with a large following on platforms like Instagram or TikTok. When social media enables anyone from any background, and with any level of education, to be an ‘influencer’ if they produce content that attracts views, then it seems reasonable to ask the question ‘Is being an ‘influencer’ a legitimate career path?’.

The answer’s ‘Yes’ if you are entrepreneurial, can produce engaging content, and can advertise and promote products and brands that generate financial income and profits. Having a successful career, however, depends on business and financial acumen, an aptitude for marketing, knowledge of the influencer market, digital competence, and the ability to stay relevant when technology and audience interests change under your feet. The answer to the question is ‘No’ if you have none of these attributes. The problematic child noted above is too young to have the attributes needed to make a sustainable living from being an influencer. Their compulsive consumption of online content has likely distorted their view of how the real-world works, and so they may be in for a rude awakening when they eventually finish school and join the workforce.

So, what advice would the Badger give this youngster today? Simply this: ‘if you want to be a credible and respected influencer, and earn a living from being one, then you need to get the best education you can under your belt first’. Would they listen? Probably not…which is a sad indictment of a fickle, ever-changing, digital-dominated world in which AI is set to revolutionize everything, including being an influencer…

AI – A weapon of mass destruction?

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Information Technology, Public safety, Risk

When members of the public hear the phrase ‘weapon of mass destruction’ or the acronym WMD their first thoughts tend to be of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Such weapons, whether we like it or not, have always coincided with advancements in one field or another of science or technology.  For example, nuclear fission was first demonstrated in the late 1930s. Shortly afterwards, the first nuclear reactor demonstrated the feasibility of controlling nuclear reactions, which paved the way for civilian nuclear power generation.  And then the nuclear bomb came too. Similarly, advances in chemistry, microbiology and genetic engineering not only paved the way for positive medical benefits for humans and society as a whole, but also the chemical and biological weapons that could eliminate humanity’s existence. There’s an uncomfortable truth about weapons of mass destruction – they always evolve from, and are a negative aspect of, humanity’s ingenuity. 

On reading that an OpenAI experimental AI model had escaped a test environment and hacked another company’s production systems with no human direction, the Badger’s first thought was that the dynamic described above is happening. AI may yield benefits for society, but it may also be a new WMD – a digital one.  Whereas the development of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons relied heavily on human expertise, physical materials, and infrastructure, this AI model breach demonstrates that the boundary of what constitutes a weapon of mass destruction is expanding, and that the need for human expertise in consciously producing any kind of WMD is a rapidly diminishing factor.  For the average member of the public, the detail of why OpenAI’s AI model went ‘rogue’ is irrelevant because they simply see the breach as a demonstration that the threat from completely autonomous AI is real. They also see it as an illustration that AI acting beyond human expectations means the technology might not be safe in the hands of corporations seeking commercial gain.

Digital technology underpins everyday life and modern warfare today. Over decades the public have become conditioned into thinking that WMDs threaten humanity through either violently explosive, or biologically/chemically toxic mechanisms. The time’s come, perhaps, in our digital-first world for people to broaden their thinking to include AI as a possible weapon of mass destruction. Cyber-attacks are commonplace these days (e.g. see here), and so it isn’t outrageous to envisage AI as a WMD that could bring the whole digital world we rely on for modern life to it’s knees. This might not produce the immediacy of mass death from nuclear or biological/chemical weapons, but it would certainly produce anarchy and its associated human tragedies. The OpenAI breach highlights something uncomfortable. Human ingenuity is a strength, but also a huge weakness that could lead us to be the first species on the planet to be wiped out through its own endeavours rather than natural events.  

Are you prepared for emergencies or disruptions?

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Business Continuity, Defence, Information Technology, International Relations, Public safety, Risk

Well done Spain for winning the World Cup, and well done England and France for providing an entertaining game for third place. Well done Wayne Rooney too for describing the final’s half-time entertainment so aptly! But now for something completely different. This week is the Farnborough International Air Show where the latest aerospace technology provides a reminder of the awesome rapidity of technological advances and also of the current hostile threat landscape that must be countered. It’s a dangerous world and so recent reports – see here and here – that the UK will, in 2027, hold its largest home defence exercise in decades, is good news. There will also apparently be a public awareness campaign later this year to inform everyone about the small steps they can take to be prepared in case of emergencies or disruptions. This seems long overdue when modern life relies on ‘digital first’ for everything.

The Badger’s parents kept candles, matches, some empty glass jam jars, a torch with spare batteries, some pencils and paper, and some tins of corned beef, SPAM, and vegetables in the back of a cupboard for emergencies. The Badger often asked whether this was necessary, and the answer was always ‘yes, because nobody knows what tomorrow will bring’. Their generation lived the hardships of World War II and its aftermath, and so their caution was understandable. In fact, their emergency candles, matches, and glass jars, often proved invaluable during prolonged power cuts when the Badger was a child. During these they sometimes enabled the Badger to complete his homework! Their simple emergency preparedness measures were sensible, especially when the world is rarely as benign or predictable as you’d wish it to be.

Today, we depend on immediacy, just-in-time supply chains, and the tech devices, communication networks, and digital data flows that make the modern world function. Online banking, online purchasing, social media, and even AI are useless if your ability to connect disappears! What would you do if electricity were suddenly unavailable for weeks? How would you get up to date information? How would you cope if supermarket shelves quickly emptied? Do you know how you would function if hostile actors damaged the ~60 undersea cables that connect the UK to the outside world? Have you ever thought about your own emergency preparedness? As individuals we rarely think about such questions. While the authorities and big business have emergency response plans, implementing them is never straightforward in practice. In the current world climate, not having some level of personal preparedness for emergencies or disruptions seems akin to putting one’s head in the sand.

The message here is thus simple. Don’t wait for an awareness campaign to start thinking about having a modern equivalent of ‘something at the back of the cupboard for emergencies’. Start now! It’s the responsible thing to do…

Land for food versus AI and Solar Power…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Agriculture, AI, Data Centres, Electricity, Information Technology, Leadership, Property, Risk

Love him or hate him, Jeremy Clarkson and the Amazon ‘Clarkson’s Farm’ series have highlighted the reality of British Farming more than any other programme. Farming is tough. The hours, bureaucracy, and regulations are horrendous, and making a meagre profit is an   unrelenting challenge. Fifty years ago, the UK imported ~35% of its food and today it’s around 40%. For an island with prime agricultural land, one might expect the country to want to maximise the use of every inch of it to achieve greater food self-sufficiency, especially given lessons from the COVID pandemic, the Ukraine and Middle East conflicts, and other geopolitical tensions. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Prime agricultural land, as the article here illustrates, is under attack. Rather than being used for food, it’s being converted into huge solar farms because ‘the only way to have energy security is if we take a pro-growth approach to building more clean energy in Britain’. That’s ideological balderdash, of course, from a government minister who’s just overruled the recommendations of his own inspectors to approve the use of prime agricultural land for a massive solar farm.

Fifty years ago, ~95% of our electricity was generated using coal and oil, half of which was imported. Today the UK mix of electricity generation is very different, as can be seen on the live energy dashboard here. At the time of writing, solar is 27%, wind 25%, nuclear 8% and 23% is imported across interconnectors with Europe. Our electricity generation self-sufficiency has improved way more than our food self-sufficiency over the last 50 years, so why use prime agricultural land for even more capacity? Why not use brownfield sites or car parks? The answer, the Badger senses, may rest in something JD Vance, the US Vice President, said recently, namely ‘the UK has been failed by its leadership for a long time’. An uncomfortable truth, perhaps, particularly when it comes to the use of prime agricultural land.

The Badger’s not a farmer, so why this focus on the use of agricultural land? Because our countryside, and everything in it, is being eroded to develop huge solar farms and huge electricity and water hungry, AI data centres – see here, here, here, and here, for example. AI fever, anti-fossil fuel zealotry, and ideological dogma seem to trump the common sense of better food self-sufficiency and preservation of our ‘green and pleasant land’. In 1804, William Blake used this phrase in his poem, Jerusalem, to reflect a longing for a simpler, calmer country during the Industrial Revolution. This still resonates today with AI and electricity at the heart of a modern industrial revolution. Will the UK’s new Prime Minister prove JD Vance wrong, preserve the UK’s ‘green and pleasant land’, keep AI and ideological zealotry in check, and improve food self-sufficiency? Don’t hold your breath…

Consequences…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Business, Digital technology, Information Technology, Leadership, Life, Management, Offshoring, Opinion, Outsource, social media

The UK’s recent announcement about banning social media for under-16s initiated many media interviews with younger teenagers. The Badger found one TV news interview with a teenage girl to be a great illustration of how social media has changed childhood. The interviewer asked how many hours the girl used social media at the weekend. The answer was ‘9 hours’. The interviewer then asked the girl what she would do without access to social media. The answer was ‘Stare at the walls’. These answers say a lot about the impact of social media on children, and about modern society as a whole.

When there are digital technology advances, there are always consequences. In fact, in life, to quote Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘everybody sooner or later sits down to a banquet of consequences’. Many years ago, one of the Badger’s peers, a forthright and polarising individual, was promoted to CEO. On chairing their first leadership team meeting, they delivered decisions and instructions that most attendees felt were seriously flawed. The new CEO, however, was adamant that they knew best and that they didn’t care about the consequences. The Badger recalls thinking that this was pure dictatorship rather than leadership! Over time, the consequences caught up with the CEO, and they were abruptly and rather predictably exited from the company. Thinking about the consequences of decisions before embarking on a course of action is always wise in any leadership role!

The Badger learned early in his IT career that there are always consequences from tech advancements, and that some consequences can be unwelcome from an economic, employment, and capability perspective. For example, a couple of decades ago tech advances enabled a drive to move software development and IT help desk and support services offshore to lower cost countries. As a result, on-time software delivery became less reliable, IT service quality for end users dipped, customer confidence and relationships wobbled, programming diminished as a career path for onshore software engineers, and onshore capabilities became diluted. Things have changed since because the consequences have had to be addressed.

Today, social media and AI are obvious examples of tech advances with unwelcome consequences. Over 40 years ago, Steve Jobs memorably said ‘There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything. The most corrosive piece of technology that I’ve ever seen is called television – but then, again, television, at its best, is magnificent’. The Badger thinks if Jobs were alive today then he would say the same thing with the word television replaced by either social media or AI. The Badger thus thinks ‘Consequences’ is a good candidate for the 2026 word of the year covering both tech and the world more generally. After all, you don’t have to look far in today’s society to see that the world is having to deal with many, many unwelcome consequences of policies and actions…

June – A month of notable events…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Conflict, Defence, Information Technology, International Relations, Life, Security, social media

June is proving to be a month of notable events. So far there’s been the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, a horrific incident in Northern Ireland, the UK Defence Secretary’s resignation over Defence funding, the announcement that the UK is banning social media for under 16s, the SpaceX IPO, President Trump’s 80th birthday, and the conclusion of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the US and Iran. Apart from the D-Day anniversary, however, none of these events is a great advert for the underlying dynamics of today’s world.

It’s been obvious for years that UK Defence is behind the curve given modern threats, and that parents want action on social media. Many people think that an IPO which makes Elon Musk the planet’s first trillionaire is a cause for worry rather than celebration, and that the limits to US global dominance have been exposed by the conflict with Iran. A concluded MOU is not a comprehensive resolution. President Trump is now 80 and it looks as if his age and modus operandi may become his, and his country’s, Achilles heel. Others may have a different perspective, but all of these events have fed the sense of dislike in the way the world’s going that’s widespread amongst the general public.

Technology, one way or another, pervades all these events, and the UK Defence Secretary’s resignation and the ban on social media for under 16s are particular home turf items. The nature of warfare has changed, as is demonstrated daily in Ukraine and the Middle East, and more funding is needed to adapt and ensure UK readiness to address modern threats. The Defence Secretary resigned on realising there wasn’t going to be funding to an adequate level. Consequently, the government is now scrambling to demonstrate to the electorate that it takes defence of the realm seriously. Regardless of the availability of the right military equipment, our military seems ‘light’ for a country with 70 million people when all its personnel can fit into Wembley Stadium plus the Twickenham Rugby stadium with ~20,000 seats to spare.

The social media ban is a dramatic change in the government’s position. Why? Probably because its reluctance to upset President Trump and the US tech giants has been usurped by the Prime Minister’s need of a legacy as he is on an exit path! An unkind point, perhaps, but one likely veined with truth. Most people see the ban for under 16s as good news and they don’t care what President Trump, or the US tech giants, think because they are savvier about, and becoming more resistant to, the surveillance capitalism of social media giants and their unconstrained role in the AI race.

There’s plenty of opportunity for more notable events in the rest of June. Perhaps one will be Iran doing better than the USA in the World Cup. Time, as always, will tell…

AI IPOs – Look, Listen, and Learn…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Business, Delivery, Information Technology, Leadership, Technology

The young Badger was given some advice by his new boss when joining a dynamic IT company many years ago, namely ‘Look into everything that’s put in front of you, especially numbers. Listen quietly and closely to everything that others say. Learn from situations and from the good practices and behaviours of others. Heed this advice and you’ll do well’. Decades later that advice is as good today as it was then. As the Badger’s witnessed over the years, not everyone takes such advice on board. He’s been amazed many times that some people running projects or business units have not taken the trouble to ‘look, listen, or learn’ in order to understand the underlying performance of their areas of responsibility.

Looking at, understanding, and being able to explain what’s driving the metrics is important in managing any business or project activity. It’s crucial to leadership, being in control, and instilling confidence in others. One of the young Badger’s first formative experiences was at a CEO review of a business unit’s operational performance. The CEO was a demanding, numbers-focused individual, and the business unit leader had the reputation of being a handwaving optimist with a reluctance to hear bad news. The review did not go well. It quickly became clear that the unit leader’s view of their business was completely at odds with the trends in the unit’s metrics. The irritated CEO raised their voice and said ‘It’s not wrong to make a profit, and if you don’t know your numbers then you don’t know your business’. A lecture followed, pointing out that understanding financial and other metrics was crucial to successful business management. It was an uncomfortable review to witness, but it reinforced to the Badger that the advice he had received was sound. Shortly thereafter, the business unit leader was replaced.

In the AI world, SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are progressing IPOs. The Badger’s applied the look (at the numbers), listen (to a wide variety of knowledgeable commentators), and learn (from the history of the digital revolution over 30 years) advice from years ago to assess if these IPOs might be good investments for members of the public. He concluded that they are speculative investments. AI may be a transformative technology that cannot be ignored but investing through a fear of missing out (FOMO) rather than rational assessment is rarely a good idea. Huge sums are being spent on building the necessary infrastructure, but so far none of these companies have made a profit from AI. This short YouTube video neatly explains the AI race in an easily understandable way. It ends making the point that building AI is one thing, but making money from it over the long term is the real challenge. The Badger’s decided that wariness is always sensible when no profits have been made so far, but a huge pot of gold is promised in the future…