Category Archives: CERM Risk News

Apple’s AI Soul Sucking Ad

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Context:  Apple released an ad called Crush – pimping its latest iPad Pro.  Great idea.  But, one that went horribly wrong.

The set up:  Apple updated its IPad Pro.  It wanted to create a splashy and memorable ad like Steve Job’s 1984 Macintosh computer ad.  Many think this ad is the most creative ad ever.  It’s shows how humans are acting like robots in a dystopian world where conformity reigns and creativity is crushed.  Until you buy the Macintosh and you’re saved.   Get it.

Check out the 1984 ad below:

Today’s Crush ad:  Apple wanted to create the same splashy ad a few weeks ago to launch its new iPad Pro.  The ad starts with the metronome – click click.  Time’s running out.  A huge compactor comes on the screen.  It starts squeezing and destroying analog creator instruments such a  drum set, speakers, piano, paint cans, paintings, books, etc.  You get the idea.  All these are analog instruments for creative work.

The message is death to the analog native.  Life to the digital native using the iPad Pro.

The result is the creative’s worst nightmare.  End of creative freedom.  IPad Pro and by extension AI are taking over.

Check it out at:

Takeaways:  It’s kinda funny that Apple the quintessential manipulator would let this ad be made.  The creative’s backlash was loud and rebuking.

Why?  It’s the fear that we all have now that robots and AI will first destroy individual creativity and shortly destroy humanity.

Apple:  How did you miss this one?  Or, is there something more sinister going.  You want to prepare us for Apple Intelligence?

Toyota: Where Art Thou?

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Engineering gods.  I’ve been a design, manufacturing, and quality engineer for a long time.  There were a few design and manufacturing companies that we religiously admired for doing the right things right – all the time.  GE with six sigma.  Boeing flying right.  Toyota for their iconic Toyota production systems.

The reality:  Each of these companies have been disrupted.  Now it is Toyota’s turn.  They have been busted for a string of quality scandals.  They allegedly falsified test reports for up to 20 years.  Not good.  Very surprising.  Hugely impactful.

Why Is this a huge deal.  For quality experts, this is the ultimate business sin.  We put Toyota on a pedestal because they made great quality products.  They invented the Toyota Production System (TPS).  They were honest.  They were transparent.  They were the good folks that we all aspired to.

They earned all this admiration.  Toyota cars were the most reliable for many years.  Well, maybe not in the future.  What up with that?  Well, Toyota’s value has slipped.  It’s quality reputation has tanked.  Investors can’t trust company management.  Why did Toyota lose its way?  Hubris?  Too global.  Too prosperous.  Who knows for sure?  What I do know is that it’s a f@cking shame.

That was then.  This is now.:  Toyota has a shareholder vote tomorrow to oust the founder’s grandson  Akio Toyoda.  This is a repudiation of their vaunted approach to business and quality.

Hard lesson learned:  Even the best can slip and do a face plant.  For us mortals, who want to do better and follow the best, we have to be less trusting.  Be arms length.  Check everything.  Don’t trust – always verify.

Training the Machine To Do Your Job

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Background:  Twenty or so years ago, workers would train their human replacements in Asia or some other part of the world.  The company would say something like we’re expanding offshore, but your job is safe.  We will keep and retrain you for a higher paying job such as calibrating equipment or coding robots.

OK.  Seemed good.  The plant was built in China.  Human workers were trained.  US workers were fired.  We understand this trope because we’ve seen it over and over again.

New trope:  What’s the new business trope?  People are now training machines and AI to do their jobs.  The result is the same.  They can lose their jobs.

Great BBC story:   BBC had a great story (AI Took Their Jobs, June 16, 2024) about a company with 60 writers and editors that published blog posts and articles.  One day management came by and said they wanted to use AI to format the articles.  Humans would edit the pieces to make them seem human.

What happened?  Phase II automation was ChatGPT would write the entire article.  What about the human workers?  All but one got fired.

Is this the future of media?  What about all those news rooms and journalists.  Do you need a real person on TV reading the news?  Why not an avatar?  Do you need news rooms?  Do you need journalists?  Anyway, you get the point.

What about the 1000’s of communications grads and English majors?  At the University of Oregon, communications is the #1 degree in terms of the size of graduates.

Hard lesson earned:  According to the BBC article, the American Writers and Artists Institute’s #1 class by far is AI for its members.  If you can’t fight them, I guess join them.

What’s your plan?

The Disposable CEO – Thanks to AI

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Context:  Most of us are worried about what’s next with AI.  We got the doomers.  AI apocalypse is coming.  Media reinforces this with its doomsters.  Fortune Magazine June 4, 2024 expressed this:  “25 Year Old Antropic Employee Says She May Have only 3 Years Left To Work Because AI Will Replace Her.”

Kinda scary:  Avital Balwit, the chief of staff at Anthropic, says its an existential crisis:

““I stand at the edge of a technological development that seems likely, should it arrive, to end employment as I know it.”

CEO’s @ Risk:  OK.  We mostly think that knowledge workers are at risk.  But, someone has to make the final decisions.  But what about upper management – the folks who say AI is the new oil or electricity, the folks who pull all the organizational levers.

So, is the CEO job sacrosanct?  So, it won’t go away.  Ahh, may be….  And, most executives also think they are indispensable, NOT disposable.

The Numbers:  Nearly half (47%) of executives in a EdX survey said that “most” or “all” CEO’s could be replaced by AI.  Not good.  The basic assumptions of business are being challenged or disrupted.

Hard lesson earned:  NY Times quote from Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, predicted that in 30 years “a robot will likely be on the cover of Time Magazine as the best CEO.”

Kinda scary when you think about it?

Total Automation

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Challenge.  I live in Portland Oregon USA.  Five blocks from us a canteen restaurant was set up.  All automated.  You use a credit card to get in.  You pay with the card.  You’re surveilled.

No humans.   All machine.  We thought a no human restaurant was an outlier.  A cute test of automation in a safe community.

Fast forward 5 years:   California enacted a $20 minimum wage for fast food workers.  And, you’ve heard of the $15 to $20 value meal.  Sorry, the value proposition no longer exists.   This isn’t working for the franchise owners, customers, and shareholders.

Enter automation:  We now got robots flipping burgers. Cutely called ‘flippy.’   We got automated ordering inside the fast food restaurant and drive thrus.

Hard lesson earned:  If you look into the short term future, you’re seeing total automation.  Robots + AI.  Everywhere.

So, ask yourself.  Is the future coming for your work/career/job?  Are you ready?