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dgcatanisiri · 1 year ago

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Know I pretty much wrote this same post about a week ago, but it IS still a major topic of discussion, so it bears repeating. And in repeating, I get to expand a little.

I really wish we could have the good faith discussions/debates about how to use the "AI" tech (quotes because yeah, we all know it's not artificial intelligence, it's mostly just art theft plugged into a computer blender). Because I can see how there is at least room for finding the ethical way of utilizing it for positive purposes. There are ways that something good could come of this stuff.

IF we had the right safeguards in place. And that's a pretty big if, considering that tech bros pushing this stuff as "the next big thing" in the same way they did NFTs and crypto and the blockchain and the metaverse and every other big tech cam in like the last five plus years and the Hollywood studios who are basically trying to use "AI generation" to replace writers and actors so that there are fewer people to cut in to the profits have pretty much poisoned the well on this.

Like, obviously, we do have voice actors speaking out against it now, so let's just remember that this is a hypothetical from the "arguing in good faith" universe, but I could see how game mods with voice generation could be a net positive - you get to allow people to expand their favorite games and actually involve the characters, you could have cut, unfinished, and deleted scenes and dialogues restored in full (like, as a Knights of the Old Republic fan, I'd love to see the full KOTOR 2 endings restored in some fashion beyond just the restoration mod), as a queer gamer, I'd love to have proper romance mods allow me to romance characters without gaps of silence or the odd misgendering... I see how this could be used for positive purposes.

(Since I mentioned the voice actors speaking against it, I do feel bound to acknowledge that there's also good reason that they are, since their voices are their acting tool, and if they don't have a way to maintain control of the use of their voice, then they lose access to their livelihood - the examples I gave were purely in the realm of fan created content, not something that destroys and replaces the demand of the voice actors as paid talent.)

And there's the fact that, as a Star Trek fan, I DO see this stuff as basically a stepping stone to the creation of holodeck technology, something that I certainly wish I could live to see be a reality.

I'd like to come up with more hypothetical good faith uses of this tech beyond that example, but the reality is that there's just no reason to believe that the good faith is there, at the very least as the tech is being put out there as it is now. Any good faith argument is centered in the idea of it being something done as an individual use, or drawing from donated or public domain works, rather than destroying or replacing the involvement of the actual artist.

And the pushers of these things are just looking at them at best as a way to keep from paying people for their work, and at worst to effectively justify trapping people in the work of mindless misery menial work because the thing that they could be doing instead of making dimes for their employers is being automated, rather than the things no one actually wants to do. And without that good faith in the conversation, without any reason to believe that the people who would be most profiting off this tech can, could, or would use it responsibly, that discussion cannot even begin to take place, let alone come to solutions.

Y'know, it's the basic "this isn't an inherently bad idea, except it's an idea that is being produced while existing under capitalism" issue.

#dg rambles #dg rants

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lord-radish · 1 year ago

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I've been thinking about ChatGPT and AI a bit lately. There's a lot of angles to it that I think fall by the wayside, and I want to really get into how I feel.

Like as a technology, AI-generated text and art is really interesting! We fed a computer so much external stimuli that it can receive a text prompt and generate a brand new image with elements that it associates with the text prompt. Ten years ago, the most we could get was a fuzzy outline, like a dream. Now you can get noticeable, recognisable images. That's insane.

AI Dungeon is awesome. ChatGPT is one thing, it's a step above Cleverbot, but with its drawbacks (absorbing so much of Reddit that it has the capacity to be bigoted, and having to be "shackled" in a way not only to prevent bigotry, but to avoid lawsuits when people ask it how to make napalm). And then there's the question of how both programs got that information that they're trained on, which is where my support begins to slip.

Because technologically, I do think AI generated content is really fucking interesting and cool. There's actually something to it as opposed to some horseshit like NFTs, which was selling a problem for it to be a solution to. It was greed and misinformation with negative practical use - it complicated the process of tying purchases to an account by inventing a series of different platforms and accounts tied to different fake currencies. NFTs had no practical use and continue to have no practical use, it literally just exists for the sake of profiteering.

AI, as a technology, actually has a point. It is actually something of an achievement, and it actually produces something of interest, or even value - art as viewed by a computer.

But with the AI boom - which feels like the NFT boom all over again, being the hot new tech bandwagon every corporation is jumping onto - new questions arise such as surveillance and automation.

Surveillance is inherent to the nature of neural networks. To train an AI, you need to feed it an unfathomable amount of content for it to form context clues and define a "vision". ChatGPT was trained on Reddit, to my understanding. AI art needs a ridiculous amount of art. Things that you made are being taken, without permission, to inform these machines.

DeviantART - who are bad enough already, what with owning everything you submit to their website and selling original designs to companies like Hot Topic without crediting or paying the original artists - announced their own AI art program that would be trained on the entire DeviantART portfolio. If you as a content creator don't consent to your work being used for that, there's almost nothing you can do.

Automation, on the other hand, isn't inherent to AI-generated art. That is a human issue - or rather, a corporate issue. Because anyone who's even remotely clued into this shit knows that AI art, either visual art or written content, has noticeable tells and flaws. It's fun, but you can't replace the entire spectrum of human expression with an algorithm.

The issue comes from companies like Ubisoft, Netflix and other massive media conglomerates who immediately jumped to AI as a cheap "baseline" writing tool, choosing to lower their employed writers to the level of revising AI-generated text. Not only are they lowering pay, but they're lowering/eliminating residuals on top of what is already an ongoing attack on art in the name of greed and profiteering.

We're watching TV and movies - easily accessible content - disappearing from digital services which operate at a fraction of the cost as, say, DVD manufacturing. And while licensing rights and all that is one thing, the reason stuff is disappearing is because companies are using them as tax write-offs. You straight up cannot access shows on digital platforms because a company like WB/Discovery wanted to avoid losing money. That is literally the only reason.

And I think the push towards AI-generated scripts stems from that greed, as well as these big network dickheads wanting their NFT moment, or their Bitcoin moment. They want to use the latest fad to get attention and fuck over their employees for profit, and then when AI as a serious proposition goes belly-up - which is absolutely going to happen, because AI-generated content isn't financially viable - they hire the writers back full-time for the same reduced wage they implemented during the AI bubble.

I don't think it's ChatGPT's fault. I blame Ubisoft for spearheading the movement to shift writing staff to revising AI-generated content. I blame every media company who followed suit, and for fucking writers in the ass for decades regarding residuals. We're seeing industries like video games and movies making billions of dollars a year in profit - not revenue, profit - only to condemn years worth of entertainment as a tax write-off and jump on a fad as an excuse to further degrade the working conditions of an essential work force.

And yet with that being said, I do have more specific issues with AI generated art that I'm going to get into.

AI prompts can get flagged by whatever software is being run, and those flagged prompts are being managed by human teams. There was a news story the other day about a team of African content moderators who were being denied counselling and other healthcare options despite being inundated with sexually explicit, violent, illegal and morally upsetting content for the entirety of their work day.

Companies that run AI art programs hire cheap labor, expose them to the most uncomfortable and harrowing content that the programs can produce, and refuse to pay for counselling when those workers are traumatized.

AI-generated art is a boundless medium, for all that can entail. As it stands now, AI art is being misused by corporations - in an effort to make it more consumer friendly, some of the poorest people in the world are being exposed to the worst possible creations of these programs. That's a decision that someone made for AI art to be commercially viable, and it's fucked up. Companies are trying to fuck over writers and artists so they don't have to pay them - again, that's a decision that a whole lot of rich jerkoffs decided on.

AI-generated content can produce just about anything, given that it's trained with enough material to form context. But "anything" means ANYTHING. It can roleplay as your grandma or pretend to be another person ala Cleverbot, or it can generate hate speech. It can show you a picture of Mesapotamian Spider-Man, or it can show you a depiction of a sex crime. Those are huge risks, and in trying to shackle the less savory aspects of AI-generated art, more people are explicitly and purposefully exposed to it, and subsequently exploited when it becomes "too expensive" to take care of them.

I think that AI-generated art is a really interesting topic. I think it's an incredible technology. I think it's being used incorrectly, and I think it has some deep flaws that call into question whether AI generation - whether its output is moderated or not - is ethical or conscionable. And it bothers me to see it reduced to "AI art is soulless and devoid of meaning, only people can make art".

Like the only reason AI art is being championed by rich dickheads is because it saves them money. Everyone knows that AI tech isn't good enough to replace human creativity. There's only a push to replace human content creators because it's cheap.

I also think seeing the possibilities of a computer generating art is incredibly fascinating! Like no, I'm not gonna buy it as a print and hang it on my wall. But the fact that a computer program was able to pull so many elements together and create an image that's even remotely as coherent as it is? That's fucking insane and cool.

It'll never replace human art, and I kind of take issue with the idea that AI art is bad because it's "soulless" or somehow "lesser", as if the point of AI art is the same as a person drawing a picture. I think companies who focus more on profit and who don't know/care enough about the craft of making art or writing are the ones devaluing the work of artists. Those companies using AI art as if it's even remotely comparable is an insult to actual artists, I can agree with that. But the AI itself isn't the problem, it's how it's being used.

Rather, AI art has a whole other set of ethical quandaries relating entirely to itself - such as consent to use pre-existing artwork to train AI programs, the existence of hate speech within the program and how to deal with it, the surveillance capabilities of a machine that absorbs everything you feed it, and the exploitation of people who work on the backend. It's an incredible technology, but to make it work - and especially to make it palatable to the public and to corporations - there are so many ethical concerns to AI art that get swept away by surface-level "can a robot write a symphony" takes.

In short, the topic of artificial intelligence and the ethics of using it to create art is a broad and messy topic, and I think there are arguments that are applied broadly to AI that are mis-attributing broader problems to AI itself. There's a whole world of ethical concerns and discussions relating to AI content generation itself, and I think that those concerns aren't as prevalent when the focus is on attacking AI for decisions that boardrooms chose to make. There's so much more to talk about.

#long post #artificial intelligence #ai art #I'm open to different perspectives so don't drop a nuclear bomb on my ask box please #this is just an opinion that I have at the moment. as things change my viewpoint will change accordingly

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arcticdementor · 4 years ago

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Warning: a longpost

Tensions between the social effects and "imperatives" of technological developments and elements of our human natures are not new — people have been debating it as far back as Diogenes, Confucius, and Laozi. But in recent discussions, I note a rather stark polarity.

On the one end, you have the people for whom the human must be subordinated to the technological. Issues created by technology cannot be fought, only individually adapted to, mostly via more technology. The people who will admit — or even go on at length — about the toxicity of social media… and yet for whom the idea of actually doing anything about it — other than individually tuning out if you can — is anathema, and they react with horror when you raise the possibility. People whose response to widespread obesity, particularly among the poor, as a result of modern lifestyles is pushing bariatric surgery (like some doctors friends and family have dealt with). Or at further extreme, singularitarian or singularitarian-adjacent ends, the people who look at our society's increasing difficulty producing future generations, and say either that it's no biggie because Any Day Now™ we'll cure aging and no longer need future generations, or it's no biggie because Any Day Now™ we'll figure out the tech for mass-manufacture of future generations like Brave New World or Battletech's Clans. At the furthest, you have the people who take the Marxist arguments about the "inherent contradictions" between industrial "capitalism" and human flourishing… and say 'so much the worse for humanity; time to start engineering the AI corporations to replace us dumb monkeys' like Nick Land.

Then you have the people at the other end, who go Luddite. Again, you can go back to filthy hobo Diogenes for this one. You've got the "environmentalists" who see anything more advanced than being a hunter-gatherer as the "rape of Mother Nature" and who unironically quote Agent Smith. Then there's the Right-wing primitivists who note that preindustrial societies cannot afford much leftism, and therefore argue that giving up electricity, indoor plumbing, medicine that works, etc. (let alone escaping this small, fragile planet) are all a small price to pay to Own the Libs.

But Confucius, while acknowledging that the creations of the Sage Kings, in bringing us from the "Greater Harmony" to the "Lesser Peace," created a certain tension between societal requirements and our human nature, pointed out that such things, like buildings, and clothing, and fire, and agriculture, and writing, et cetera, are worth the trade-off as opposed to a more natural lifestyle as naked cavemen. But, accepting the trade-off doesn't mean we can't do things to ameliorate those tensions and try to reduce the negative impacts.

Tyler Cowen posited his future Average Is Over dystopia of the vast majority of the population relegated to being impoverished, packed into overcrowded favelas eating beans and bugs, pacified by VR, drugs, and omnipresent government surveillance and enforcement… and when confronted about the undesirability of such and how we might avoid it, simply proclaims it inevitable: the Economy has spoken, and we humans can only obey its dictates. Whatever happened to the idea that our tools and our economy exist to serve us, and our human needs, rather than us existing to serve their needs? Okay, probably most people who held that view from a secular perspective likely ended up embracing Marxism as the means of doing so, and then Marxism failed. (This links in to my unwritten potential post about how Wokism is neither Marxist nor postmodern, despite drawing partially from both.) And those who did so from a religious perspective ended up divided by their various specific sectarian views and given to "solutions" that boil down to unsupported individual piety — or else, being the Amish.

There's that whole bit about "unless you're over 60, you weren't promised flying cars. You were promised an oppressive cyberpunk dystopia." And plenty of people have covered this ground before, about how our visions of technological progress used to be about how it would make our lives better and allow us to better pursue our various human ends, but now are all about how it will make our lives worse and force us to pursue its various inhuman ends. Even the few "optimistic" visions are hyper-individualist, and when confronted about man's nature as a social animal, either insist that said needs will be met through "relationships" with individualized AI surrogates (the whole "2d > 3d," yay sexbots view), or else that the need for human connection will prove yet another "flaw" to be engineered out in whatever manner of "posthuman" creatures replace us.

I look back on those more optimistic visions. At what past societies considered a better future, before we gave up on it. And I note how even the utopian visions of 19th century socialists are, compared to our day, rather spectacularly un-Woke — and definitely better than 'soypunk dystopia, but at least with rainbow flags and nobody being misgendered while they toil for Amazon.'

And, of course, if you go further back, you eventually end up before any serious ideas of progress. Then, ideas about a better world were not speculations about the future, but about the afterlife. I recall a couple of discussions about Bleach, Soul Society, and the average Tenth Century Japanese peasant's idea of Paradise; or (IIRC, prompted by some terrible "humanity curbstomps the invading Legions of Hell who are wielding Bronze Age weapons against modern militaries" story on SpaceBattles) what a Bronze Age goat-herder would consider Heaven?

Are subordination to technological imperatives or Luddism really the only two choices? Are we really left with either the poor afflicted with starvation or the poor afflicted with obesity? For those of us who find the society "progress" has created increasingly alienated, and who prefer older visions and modes of living more attractive, is total renunciation and "going full Amish" really the only alternative?

I look at writers like Chesterton and Lewis and Tolkien, and their ideal social structures, and I think, isn't there some way that technological progress can be channeled towards allowing us — or, at least those of us who want to — to achieve a better, more comfortable, more broadly-available, less labor-intensive version of the Shire Hobbit lifestyle, rather than better digital circuses to numb us while we all eat bugs in our dorm tubes in Scat Francisco?

Or, for those of you so inclined, a better, more comfortable, more broadly-available, less labor-intensive version of the Oscar Wilde lifestyle? After all, I note that a perennial condemnation of aristocrats has been about what big, degenerate perverts they are behind closed doors — that de Sade got in trouble, more for atheism, but also for the "writing publicly about it" part? I mean, aside from maybe @ponteh2dhh1ksdiwesph2tres, where are the people trying to work out, instead of "Fully-Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism," how we might create "Fully-Automated Decadent Space Aristocracy"? Where are the people trying to use computers and AI to create a better version of the Imperial court of Elagabalus without all the slavery and need for foreign conquest to pay for its orgies?

Is there even a term for this idea, of using technology to create better versions of the past, rather than simply letting "progress" take us wherever it will, and all negative consequences treated as simply things we must each individually struggle to avoid and cope with, with all of us in competition against one another to become one of those chosen few ultra-rich tech overlords wealthy enough to escape living in the favelas, the few powerful enough to avoid ruination should one end up on the wrong end of Twitter cancelation?

Wow. Look at me, gloomy pessimist that I am, actually calling for some optimism and hope for the future. Yeah, I probably shouldn't have even bothered with the effort of writing this post. Because of course the only possible futures are all terrible.

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nikolasfuturist · 8 years ago

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Each week Nikolas Badminton, Futurist Speaker, summarizes the top-5 future looking developments and news items that I find to be inspiring, interesting, concerning, or downright strange. Each day he reads through dozens of blogs and news websites to find those things that we should be aware of.

It’s been a couple of weeks since the past Future Trends post as Nikolas has been on the road speaking to thousands of people across Canada so this week we have an extended edition – enjoy!

In Future Trends – DIY Iron Man vs. Cardboard Drones we look at a crazy Iron Man-inspired suit, Australia’s solar solutions, giving up driving, Police constant surveillance, the 4th Industrial Revolution, cardboard delivery drones, GMOs, and banks giving up the human touch

Daedulus is an insane, real-life flying Iron Man suit

One UK entrepreneur has transformed himself into a real life Iron Man of sorts, and he says his custom-built exoskeleton with six attached micro jet engines could do the same for just about anyone else.

Richard Browning is an oil trader with a penchant for technology and innovation. But he’s also a triathlete and ultramarathon runner who might be just a little obsessed with pushing the potential of the human mind and body.

A few years back he began investigating ways to innovate around the possibility of human-powered flight but found that a few well-funded University labs were already making significant progress, so he decided to pursue a different approach.

“We said, we’ll stick with the human mind and body bit, but go for augmentation with a bit of horsepower,” Browning told me via Skype.

Read more at The New York Post

The post Future Trends – DIY Iron Man vs. Cardboard Drones appeared first on Nikolas Badminton, Futurist Speaker.

#IFTTT #WordPress

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savetopnow · 7 years ago

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2018-03-19 00 TECH now

TECH

Ars Techica

People’s Republic of Desire film review: Yes, Black Mirror is already here

VR headsets have become the new arthouse—the best of SXSW’s fantastic VR festival

Staring at Firefly Aerospace’s hot rocket-engine flames in a Texas pasture

Rum and Bones: Second Tide—A piratical tabletop MOBA

Fortnite brings out the 10-year-old fort builder in all of us

Buzzfeed Tech

Facebook Is Suspending Cambridge Analytica, The Data Company That Worked For Trump's Campaign

Anti-Immigrant Ads Aimed At Tech Workers Are Running On Public Transit

Uber Is Being Challenged For Trying To Send a Sexual Assault Lawsuit to Arbitration

The Trump Administration Is Accusing Russia Of Trying To Hack The US Power Grid

After Parkland, Companies Are Selling Uncertified Bulletproof Backpacks

CNet

Audi announces A9 E-tron sedan, a big four-door Model S fighter - Roadshow

One writer's long overdue adventure with mechanical keyboards - CNET

Dell Latitude 7390 2-in-1 review - CNET

Dayton Audio MK402 review - CNET

Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and Trump: What you need to know - CNET

Clean Technica

Germany’s New Transport Minister Opposes Diesel Car Bans & Forced Retrofits … But Claims To Be No “Buddy” Of Auto Manufacturers

Minister Of Largest German State Taken To Court On Diesel Bans

Tesla Model X Wandering Wyoming Wilderness (Video)

BYD’s Revenge In China — February Electric Car Sales Report

Nearly 500,000 Resumes & Applications For 2,500 Tesla Job Openings In 2017

Hacker News

HIP – Convert CUDA to Portable C++ Code

Deciphering China’s AI Dream

Password-less authentication with XMPP

Historical recreation/restoration of original FORTH on the IBM 1130

Gaijin Engineer in Tokyo

Mashable

The tech talent gap is real. Increased diversity is the solution.

Everyone just gave up and laughed openly during this 'Saturday Night Live' sketch

Stefon makes his triumphant return to 'Saturday Night Live'—and of course, he breaks

'Saturday Night Live' cold open tackles Trump's Tillerson and McCabe firings

Sleep Awareness Week is a thing, so here are three products on sale to help you snooze

Motherboard

These Canadians Are Building the First Commercial Electric Snowmobile

An Australian Cyborg Was Fined for Using His Hand to Pay for the Train

'Tomb Raider' Sucks Because It Messed With the 'Indiana Jones' Formula

The Last Rites of Quotient Lorenzo-Lochbaum

The City That Banned Bitcoin Mining

New York Times Technology

Adrian Lamo, Hacker Who Reported Chelsea Manning to the F.B.I., Dies at 37

How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions

Data Firm Tied to Trump Campaign Talked Business With Russians

The Future of Time Warner, Coming Soon to a Court Near You

Qualcomm’s Ex-Chairman to Leave Amid Plans to Buy Company

Recode

Here’s how Facebook allowed Cambridge Analytica to get data for 50 million users

Here are the New York Times and Observer stories that pushed Facebook to suspend Trump’s data analytics company

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour needed a break — so she traveled the world, talking about sex

Roughly one in four Americans is online ‘constantly’

Meerkat was the darling of SXSW in 2015. Here’s why it pivoted three months later and became Houseparty.

Reddit Technology

Pfizer CEO gets 61% pay raise—to $27.9 million—as drug prices continue to climb

Stephen Hawking predicted the end of the world in final research paper submitted just two weeks before his death

Cryptocurrency investors face hefty tax bills as IRS closes in

Cambridge Analytica and Facebook accused of misleading MPs over data breach

Origami-Folded Hydrogel Paper Instantly Generates 110 Volts of Electricity - Researchers combine 3D-printed hydrogels and origami to create an electric eel-inspired power source

Reuters Technology

Baidu video streaming unit iQiyi launches $2.4 billion U.S. IPO

Desilu plans U.S. listing to complete Vonetize acquisition

Facebook critics want regulation, investigation after data misuse

Bundesbank's Buch adds to calls for cryptocurrency regulation

China's Didi looks to raise $1.6 billion via asset-backed securities

Slashdot

Facebook and Its Executives Are Getting Destroyed After Botching the Handling of a Massive Data Breach

Are Google and Facebook Surveilling Their Own Employees?

Ask Slashdot: How Can I Prove My ISP Slows Certain Traffic?

Can Problems From Climate Change Be Addressed With Science?

Google Open Sources Its Exoplanet-Hunting AI

TechCrunch

Everything is terrible: an explanation

Facebook’s latest privacy debacle stirs up more regulatory interest from lawmakers

YouTube is reportedly introducing your kids to conspiracy theories, too

The Cambridge Analytica Debacle is not a Facebook “Data Breach.” Maybe It Should Be.

Qualcomm’s war may be over, but the casualties are just starting to be calculated

The Next Web

Stop whining, GDPR is actually good for your business

How Uber ghost rides are linked to online money laundering

What the GDPR will mean for companies tracking location

How to perfect your pitch deck — according to a guy that gets a lot of pitches

Use Facebook, Instagram and social channels to market the right way — learn how for only $29

The Verge

My bubble wrap phone case doubles as an audio experience

Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook data was a ‘grossly unethical experiment’

Oculus Go standalone VR headset rumored to launch at F8 developer conference

AR company Avegant has replaced its CEO and laid off more than half its staff

Nnedi Okorafor is writing a comic series about Black Panther’s Dora Milaje warriors

WSJ Tech

The Battery Boost We've Been Waiting for Is Getting Close

Now China's Internet Giants Are Shaking Up the Car Industry

Why Some 'Fortnite' Friends Can't Play Together

How the DOJ's Face-Off With AT&T Could Alter American Business

Senate Likely to Pass Bill Limiting Websites' Immunity in Sex-Trafficking Cases

Wired

The Universe Is Basically a Hippie’s Pipe Dream

Raise Your Glasses

Don’t Do Drugs and Watch ‘Annihilation’

‘Dr. Strangelove’ Is Basically a Documentary

Total Clips

#tech

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technicalsolutions88 · 4 years ago

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Swiss keyboard startup Typewise has bagged a $1 million seed round to build out a typo-busting, ‘privacy-safe’ next word prediction engine designed to run entirely offline. No cloud connectivity, no data mining risk is the basic idea.

They also intend the tech to work on text inputs made on any device, be it a smartphone or desktop, a wearable, VR — or something weirder that Elon Musk might want to plug into your brain in future.

For now they’ve got a smartphone keyboard app that’s had around 250,000 downloads — with some 65,000 active users at this point.

The seed funding breaks down into $700K from more than a dozen local business angels; and $340K via the Swiss government through a mechanism (called “Innosuisse projects“), akin to a research grant, which is paying for the startup to employ machine learning experts at Zurich’s ETH research university to build out the core AI.

The team soft launched a smartphone keyboard app late last year, which includes some additional tweaks (such as an optional honeycomb layout they tout as more efficient; and the ability to edit next word predictions so the keyboard quickly groks your slang) to get users to start feeding in data to build out their AI.

Their main focus is on developing an offline next word prediction engine which could be licensed for use anywhere users are texting, not just on a mobile device.

“The goal is to develop a world-leading text prediction engine that runs completely on-device,” says co-founder David Eberle. “The smartphone keyboard really is a first use case. It’s great to test and develop our algorithms in a real-life setting with tens of thousands of users. The larger play is to bring word/sentence completion to any application that involves text entry, on mobiles or desktop (or in future also wearables/VR/Brain-Computer Interfaces).

“Currently it’s pretty much only Google working on this (see Gmail’s auto completion feature). Applications such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, Telegram, or even SAP, Oracle, Salesforce would want such productivity increase – and at that level privacy/data security matters a lot. Ultimately we envision that every “human-machine interface” is, at least on the text-input level, powered by Typewise.”

You’d be forgiven for thinking all this sounds a bit retro, given the earlier boom in smartphone AI keyboards — such as SwiftKey (now owned by Microsoft).

The founders have also pushed specific elements of their current keyboard app — such as the distinctive honeycomb layout — before, going down a crowdfunding route back in 2015, when they were calling the concept Wrio. But they reckon it’s now time to go all in — hence relaunching the business as Typewise and shooting to build a licensing business for offline next word prediction.

“We’ll use the funds to develop advanced text predictions… first launching it in the keyboard app and then bringing it to the desktop to start building partnerships with relevant software vendors,” says Eberle, noting they’re working on various enhancements to the keyboard app and also plan to spend on marketing to try to hit 1M active users next year.

“We have more ‘innovative stuff’ [incoming] on the UX side as well, e.g. interacting with auto correction (so the user can easily intervene when it does something wrong — in many countries users just turn it off on all keyboards because it gets annoying), gamifying the general typing experience (big opportunity for kids/teenagers, also making them more aware of what and how they type), etc.”

The competitive landscape around smartphone keyboard tech, largely dominated by tech giants, has left room for indie plays, is the thinking. Nor is Typewise the only startup thinking that way (Fleksy has similar ambitions, for one). However gaining traction vs such giants — and over long established typing methods — is the tricky bit.

Android maker Google has ploughed resource into its Gboard AI keyboard — larding it with features. While, on iOS, Apple’s interface for switching to a third party keyboard is infamously frustrating and finicky; the opposite of a seamless experience. Plus the native keyboard offers next word prediction baked in — and Apple has plenty of privacy credit. So why would a user bother switching is the problem there.

Competing for smartphone users’ fingers as an indie certainly isn’t easy. Alternative keyboard layouts and input mechanism are always a very tough sell as they disrupt people’s muscle memory and hit mobile users hard in their comfort and productivity zone. Unless the user is patient and/or stubborn enough to stick with a frustratingly different experience they’ll soon ditch for the keyboard devil they know. (‘Qwerty’ is an ancient typewriter layout turned typing habit we English speakers just can’t kick.)

Given all that, Typewise’s retooled focus on offline next word prediction to do white label b2b licensing makes more sense — assuming they can pull off the core tech.

And, again, they’re competing at a data disadvantage on that front vs more established tech giant keyboard players, even as they argue that’s also a market opportunity.

“Google and Microsoft (thanks to the acquisition of SwiftKey) have a solid technology in place and have started to offer text predictions outside of the keyboard; many of their competitors, however, will want to embed a proprietary (difficult to build) or independent technology, especially if their value proposition is focused on privacy/confidentiality,” Eberle argues.

“Would Telegram want to use Google’s text predictions? Would SAP want that their clients’ data goes through Microsoft’s prediction algorithms? That’s where we see our right to win: world-class text predictions that run on-device (privacy) and are made in Switzerland (independent environment, no security back doors, etc).”

Early impressions of Typewise’s next word prediction smarts (gleaned by via checking out its iOS app) are pretty low key (ha!). But it’s v1 of the AI — and Eberle talks bullishly of having “world class” developers working on it.

“The collaboration with ETH just started a few weeks ago and thus there are no significant improvements yet visible in the live app,” he tells TechCrunch. “As the collaboration runs until the end of 2021 (with the opportunity of extension) the vast majority of innovation is still to come.”

He also tells us Typewise is working with ETH’s Prof. Thomas Hofmann (chair of the Data Analytic Lab, formerly at Google), as well as having has two PhDs in NLP/ML and one MSc in ML contributing to the effort.

“We get exclusive rights to the [ETH] technology; they don’t hold equity but they get paid by the Swiss government on our behalf,” Eberle also notes.

Typewise says its smartphone app supports more than 35 languages. But its next word prediction AI can only handle English, German, French, Italian and Spanish at this point. The startup says more are being added.

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businessliveme · 5 years ago

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What Important Innovation or Idea Is Being Overlooked Today?

(Bloomberg Markets) — Everyone wants an early glimpse of the next big thing, a peek into the future. So we went to Asia to ask some leading investors, financiers, and technology executives for their take on what the global herd doesn’t fully appreciate—yet.

Ahn Le Partner, Fintech Practice, Chinarock Capital Management Ventures

We are still early in the blockchain adoption curve. The [fintech] industry will continue to go through various iterations in which a killer application will push the limits of the existing infrastructure, and that demand will create a breakthrough at the protocol level—be it scalability, interoperability, or privacy. Startups that can improve the user experience and provide key services for developers, investors, and end users will succeed regardless of main chain outcomes. Seamless customer onboarding, user interface, security and privacy of personal data and assets—and a killer reason to use blockchain technology or crypto assets—still need to happen, whether it be in developing countries or the U.S.

Nana Otsuki Chief Analyst, Monex Inc.

As the global society gets older, we need to think about offering more creative business opportunities for elderly people. Some may think about writing novels, doing research and teaching history, or programming for apps. They could provide their services or products via the internet, and companies could offer platforms to connect them. The target customers for these products would be also elderly people. They know what other people their age want. This elderly-to-elderly, or e-to-e, business would give the older generation not only money, but also motivation to live long and healthy lives.

Simon Loong Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Welab Holdings Ltd.

With so many devices connected to the internet, from laptops to mobile phones to wearables, people are generating a vast amount of data. In 2015 an average person generated around 0.32 gigabytes per day. By the year 2020 it is estimated that an average person will generate 1.5 gigabytes per day

Hence in today’s world of complex information systems and connected platforms/networks, it is crucial to explore creative solutions to extract valuable insights from users’ data while protecting users’ data privacy as information travels through a network of systems.

Maaike Steinebach Hong Kong and Macau General Manager, Visa Inc.

As the pace of innovation has accelerated, particularly in a tech hotbed such as the [Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau] greater bay area, companies can overlook the importance of an open, interoperable customer experience. This is not a groundbreaking idea, per se. But the main challenges for fintech are also consumers’ challenges—namely, how can we broaden consumer choices when it comes to payment? Consumers should be able to pay with whichever payment method they choose, be it standardized contactless payments or QR code via digital wallets, at the point of sale. For that to happen, we need to foster an open-loop payment ecosystem, enabling full and consistent interoperability.

Kevin Bong Director of Economics and Investment Strategies, GIC

In recent years, emerging markets have become major hubs for innovation and technology adoption, and hence investment opportunities. Their strengths: nascent infrastructure with room for substantial growth, highly innovative companies addressing challenges from the ground up, and greater openness to experimentation.

Over the long term, we believe that technological disruption can be even more powerful in emerging economies, as these economies have more unmet and undiscovered needs and more leapfrogging opportunities. Their companies offer products that are better, cheaper, and faster. New entrants and innovators often create entirely new categories. For example, micro banking and e-commerce have been big boons to small businesses and consumers, giving them much-needed access to financing and new marketplaces.

Cheng Li Chief Technology Officer Ant Financial

We live in an era where all of the ways in which we live and work today can be made far more efficient and inclusive through digital technology. Not just seeking out far-fetched moonshots, but also focusing on the ordinary that’s all around us—conventional ideas that haven’t been reimagined in decades or even centuries. Take, for example, how we buy and sell, receive and pay, and how we transfer money globally. All these have hidden possibilities waiting to be revolutionized through digitalization, to make it easier to do business anywhere, and bring equal opportunities all around the world.

Hannah Qiu Co-General Manager Ping An Oneconnect

Unstructured data currently accounts for more than 80% of all data, but the centralization and governance of unstructured data in text, voice, and video have not yet been well established. The value of applying this data still needs to be further developed. The current research and development of fundamental AI technology is relatively robust; however, the application of AI technology into finance still needs work. Due to the lack of cross-border discipline talent and the sensitivity of financial data, the fast development of innovation in AI plus finance is currently limited. The establishment of standards and risk-prevention systems also lags behind.

Piyush Gupta Chief Executive Officer, DBS Group Holdings Ltd.

AI and data are getting a lot of investment and attention. I think the related important thing will be augmented reality and virtual reality, because when you merge AR into virtual reality, you can get into a completely different world.

It’s meaningful because—can you imagine?—you can live in a whole alternate world your whole life. I don’t need to be physically here. I can be sitting in my office, I project, and you can see my augmented-reality thing and I can be telling you everything you really need. I don’t physically move. So the notion of hologram, the notion of avatar, the notion of virtual people going everywhere—we can make that possible.

The post What Important Innovation or Idea Is Being Overlooked Today? appeared first on Businessliveme.com.

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mikemortgage · 6 years ago

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Innovation Nation: How to boost adoption of AI — ethically

Canada has a rich history of innovation, but in the next few decades, powerful technological forces will transform the global economy. Large multinational companies have jumped out to a headstart in the race to succeed, and Canada runs the risk of falling behind. At stake is nothing less than our prosperity and economic well-being. The Financial Post set out explore what is needed for businesses to flourish and grow. You can find all of our coverage here.

The race is on for global industry leaders to take advantage of artificial intelligence (AI) and the wide variety of improvements it brings to virtually every business function. At the same time, concerns are on the rise about the potential social implications and unintended consequences that may come with machines making decisions for humans.

So where does Canada — a country considered to be a global leader in AI research — fit into this exciting yet tumultuous landscape?

Innovation Nation: Montreal’s AI supercluster is all about the little guy

Innovation Nation: AI godfathers gave Canada an early edge — but we could end up being left in the dust

Innovation Nation: Big tech lifts all boats

Harnessing the power of artificial intelligence must be a top priority for Canada’s leaders. When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined us to discuss AI in Canada on Accenture’s podcast The AI Effect, he asserted that if Canada wants to continue its leading role, our businesses and governments need to invest in moving beyond the research, experimentation and pilot phase to implement AI-powered solutions within their operations.

Despite our AI research legacy, implementation is where Canada falls short.

Although Canada is home to plenty of leading minds in tech, Canadian businesses are lagging when it comes to putting AI to work. A global survey conducted by Forbes Insights on behalf of Accenture and others found that Canadian organizations are behind other countries in deploying AI within their operations, and well behind countries that can be considered leaders in the field.

The survey looked at responses from 305 global business leaders, including 44 from Canada. Around the world, 51 per cent of respondents said the impact of the deployment of AI-based technologies on their operations has been“successful” or “highly successful.” Of those surveyed from Canada, only 31 per cent said the same — the lowest among any of the countries polled.

So, what’s holding us back? In our recent discussions with business leaders, we found the biggest challenges constraining AI adoption don’t revolve around the time or cost of deploying new technology. These, as well as data, are certainly blockers for many use cases, but some of the biggest challenges revolve around organizational readiness and “ethical” questions about unintended consequences like bias, opaqueness and unauthorized data uses.

We asked about these issues in our global survey: Nearly 20 per cent of respondents identified “resistance from employees due to concerns about job security” as a challenge to their AI efforts; 57 per cent also highlighted concerns from employees feeling threatened or overstrained. While business and technology leaders themselves anticipate little threat to job numbers from AI, the need for more proactive communication, and of course an emphasis on training for new skills, is clear.

It’s also required across all levels and roles. A recent study of 100 top Canadian CFOs conducted by Odgers Berndtson found that 70 per cent of respondents did not have confidence in their team’s skillset to support an AI transformation strategy either.

The other problem businesses face is how to adopt AI at scale while paying attention to the ethical questions it raises. The Accenture survey revealed Canadian companies are trying to get ahead of this. While we ranked last in deploying AI, we ranked high among the leaders in establishing ethics committees to review the use of AI and providing ethics training for technologists.

This is positive news because the survey also showed a clear connection between successful AI adoption and investment in ethics initiatives — or what we refer to broadly as “Responsible AI” programs. This is a growing field full of economic opportunity, and Canada is in a great position to lead it. Getting ahead of the unintended consequences of AI with the right policy frameworks, oversight processes and tooling will mean Canadian businesses can move forward assertively with implementation.

AI is revolutionary. But like many revolutionary developments, AI requires care. The fact that Canada is a research leader and we’re looking at the ethical issues is a good sign for the human beings who are counting on AI for a brighter future, and for the Canadian businesses needing that final push.

Jodie Wallis is Accenture Canada’s AI Lead. Amber Mac is a global technology reporter and author. Together, they host The AI Effect podcast, available for download at theEffect.ai.

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adrianjenkins952wblr · 6 years ago

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Diversifying Data With Artificial Intelligence And Blockchain Technology

An impressive feature of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is the technology’s ability to provide computational power to create cognition in machines. Yet A.I. critics today have become concerned that many artificial intelligence projects are centrally controlled and therefore producing “Narrow A.I.”

Unlike human cognition, narrow A.I. is not conscious or driven by emotion. Rather, narrow A.I. operates within a pre-determined, pre-defined range, even if it appears to be much more sophisticated than that. Virtual assistants like Google’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa exhibit examples of narrow A.I. While these A.I.-based systems are able to communicate with users and answer questions, these machines are nowhere close to having human-like intelligence.

According to Arif Khan, V.P. of Marketing at SingularityNET, centrally controlled A.I. projects led by large tech companies have resulted in the creation of narrow data sets, which could be harmful for the future of artificial intelligence.

Let’s say Facebook wants to develop A.I. algorithms. Facebook’s big data sets will never be disclosed to a competitor, as it is in Facebook’s best interest to keep this information private. In turn, Facebook would never have access to data sets from their competitors. Moreover, the data sets that Facebook builds upon would contain private information, most likely to be used for their own benefits to drive shareholder value,” Khan explained. “Yet if Facebook created an A.I. with the penultimate aim of optimizing shareholder value, Facebook’s AI algorithms would drive user behavior in a specific direction creating a pigeonholed view of society powered by these algorithms. For example, humans might share fake news, resulting in Facebook’s algorithms furthering the proliferation of such content. If you just have data sets, and algorithms that are biased towards creating shareholder value through ad clicks, what will be created might not benefit the overall good of society.”

For example, in 2016 Microsoft launched an A.I. based Twitter bot named “Tay” as an experiment in “controversial understanding.” Microsoft noted that the more users chatted with Tay, the smarter the bot became, learning to engage with humans through “casual and playful” conversation.

Unfortunately, conversations with Tay took a turn for the worse when Twitter users started tweeting racist remarks at the bot. Tay, being an A.I.-based project controlled by a central authority, started to repeat these sentiments back to users. This is an example of the impact narrow algorithms can have on society.

Creating Diverse Data Sets With Blockchain Technology

Unlike artificial intelligence based-projects, blockchain technology creates decentralized, transparent networks that can be accessed by anyone, around the world. While blockchain technology is the ledger that powers cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, blockchain networks are now being applied to a number of industries to create decentralization. For example, SinguarlityNET is specifically focused on using blockchain technology to encourage a broader distribution of data and algorithms, helping ensure the future development of artificial intelligence and the creation of “decentralized A.I.”

SingularityNET combines blockchain and A.I. to create smarter, decentralized A.I. Blockchain networks that can host diverse data sets. By creating an API of API’s on the blockchain, it would allow for the intercommunication of A.I. agents. As a result, diverse algorithms can be built on diverse data sets ” Khan said. “Think of the blockchain as this wide horizontal layer that stretches across all different cultures, nationalities and geographies. Everyone has access to this horizontal layer and can interact with this strata of technology, which allows people to upload and work with very diverse data sets. Unlike centrally controlled data sets, data sets on a blockchain networks are not firewalled or controlled by a central authority.”

Hanson Robotics is planning to use SingularityNET to improve the intelligence of their humanoid robot, Sophia. Unlike Amazon’s Alexa, which answers questions approved only by Amazon, Sophia will be able to reach out to other artificial intelligence providers for answers to questions. This is a much more flexible solution, as Sophia will not be controlled by a central authority.

Blockchain technology will make it easy, and in many cases profitable, for A.I. developers to provide their code as services that other products can access. For a product like Sophia, it will increase the scope of third-party A.I. services that can be accessed in real-time to help do things like answer questions and interpret situations. The SingularityNET team is also creating some uniquely powerful A.I., like the OpenCog integrated AGI system, that will help robots like Sophia understand the world in human-like ways,” said Ben Goertzel, chief scientist at Hanson Robotics.

According to Goertzel, as more A.I. services are placed on blockchain networks, these services will begin interacting with each other and enhancing each others’ intelligence. In turn, this will create a dramatic increase in the breadth of A.I. applications available in the world, as well as the general intelligence and creativity of the A.I.s out there.

Moreover, open marketplaces for shared data, such as Ocean Protocol, will allow anyone the ability to set up a marketplace for any kind of data. Users of the data will pay to access these sources with cryptocurrency. The marketplaces built on Ocean Protocol will allow data to be accessed by all participants, ensuring that no central player can control or exploit the data. The overall goal of this project is to decentralize access to data, ensuring that narrow data sets are not produced.

Businesses can turn their data from cost centers to profit centers. They can also buy data that hasn’t been available until now, to compete with Google, Amazon and Facebook. And because the Ocean Protocol network rewards data with clear provenance, power is pushed back to the data source, which in many cases is the individual,” Bruce Pon, Founder Ocean Protocol, told me. “Data has immense value, but no one shares it because everyone’s scared to lose control. By creating a decentralized network where anyone can share safely, while keeping control and privacy, a new Data Economy can emerge.”

Decentralized Data Depends On Us

Although the combination of blockchain and A.I is still nascent, Khan believes that the real challenge facing the adoption of decentralized A.I. is getting people to understand how their data is currently being used. Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, even stated in October that people don’t understand how their own data is being “weaponized” against them.

Having others decide how data is being sold in order to to create profits for businesses demonstrates that data is being weaponized against us. Blockchain allows us to cryptographically protect our data and have it used in the ways we see fit. This also let’s us monetize data personally if we choose to, without having our personal information compromised. This is important to understand in order to combat myopic algorithms and create diverse data sets in the future.”

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courtneyvbrooks87 · 6 years ago

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Diversifying Data With Artificial Intelligence And Blockchain Technology

Creating Diverse Data Sets With Blockchain Technology

Decentralized Data Depends On Us

Source link https://ift.tt/2BQvpiu

#IFTTT #Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin

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teiraymondmccoy78 · 6 years ago

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Diversifying Data With Artificial Intelligence And Blockchain Technology

Creating Diverse Data Sets With Blockchain Technology

Decentralized Data Depends On Us

Source link https://ift.tt/2BQvpiu

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alanajacksontx · 6 years ago

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Q&A with SAP on digital transformation and search

We’re all scrambling to keep up with digital transformation, navigate which new technology is right for us, and nail that elusive “omnichannel, seamless, ultimate customer experience.”

Yet in all the hustle, we may be missing one of the most important pieces of the transformation process: bringing our internal teams with us. Before we can transform our digital prowess, we need to transform our company culture.

Last week we spoke with Siddarth Taparia, SVP and Head of Marketing Transformation at SAP. He argues that digital transformation is preceded not by technology but by people, and shares what SAP is doing to ready themselves for the future.

As a sidenote, Siddarth will be giving the keynote at the Transformation of Search Summit in NY on Oct 19. We touch on some of his views on the future of search in this conversation.

ClickZ: Tell us a bit about your position and what you work on.

Siddarth Taparia: I’m responsible for all marketing from a transformation perspective: how we need to transform, what role technology is playing in our transformation, and behavioral changes we work on.

SAP as a company has close to 400,000 customers worldwide. We operate in over 100 countries, and have roughly $28 billion in revenue every year. We have one of the largest ecosystems of partners, ranging from large technology companies like Microsoft and Amazon, to services partners like EY, to all our hundreds of channel partners.

CZ: You’ve got one of the largest companies in this space. How do you understand which technologies are right for you? How are you structuring your transformation?

ST: When I think about transformation, I’m not thinking about technology first.

That may sound a little counterintuitive because we’re a technology company. And to this day, technology remains a tool that is powering transformation. But the transformation itself is about two things: it’s about business results, and it’s about people.

When you bring those things together, that’s what brings transformation.

Change is hard—often what we’ve found is that changing the technology is the easy part. Changing the behavior of people takes a lot longer. We don’t think about the technology first. We think about what business results we’re trying to drive. Then we think about what technology.

I’m a big believer in what Peter Drucker said: “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” We can have the best strategy in the world. But to drive it into real change, we need to bring about a cultural change—that’s the hard part. Change management is not to be underestimated in any of this.

CZ: Could you give us an example of how SAP manages change?

ST: One of the big changes we’re in the process of driving right now is “how do we create a highly personalized experience for our customers when they come in?” Technology works best when it disappears. We want to make sure our technology disappears and our customers get a beautiful, personalized experience.

In order to make that happen, we have to drive a lot of internal change. We have to break a lot of silos between sharing of data. We have to look at what we know about our customers from other sources and how we can integrate it. That oftentimes means we have to change our internal processes.

In this case we’ve had to make sure we’re thinking about the customer journey first—before thinking about our internal organization and systems. We’ve had to look at the journey and say “here’s where the customer comes to us, here’s where they make certain decisions, here’s what the rest of their journey looks like, let’s optimize for that.”

Oftentimes, marketing teams are set up by certain structures: brand, events, advertising, digital. But it turns out the same customer is coming to an event, looking at an ad, going to sap.com, and having a one-on-one conversation with a salesperson. We’ve had to turn our systems and processes inside-out so we can have integration of data.

So first and foremost, we need to educate our employees about what we’re doing and why. Every employee in SAP marketing right now can tell you what we mean when we say customer journey. Then we think about how we can work with employees to provide better connectivity across our own systems. How do we change our technology and processes so that they’re not visible to the customer, but they accomplish what the customer cares about: when I go to your website or go to an event, you know enough about me to pick up the conversation from where it was left off last, so I’m not repeating information or having an experience that’s not highly relevant to me.

We’ve been working through this challenge for quite some time, especially as new technologies like AI and machine learning come in and are playing such a big role in terms of providing a much more personalized customer experience.

CZ: From a theoretical or strategic standpoint, that all makes perfect sense. But from a technological side, can you talk about what steps you take? How do you find the right technology?

ST: This is an ongoing journey for us—we’re in it right now. We have almost daily conversations on how to streamline our processes, how to make our CX better, and how to use technology to make that happen.

Right now, we’re looking at how we can send fewer emails to our customers and instead have them naturally come in and find us when they have a need.

None of us wants more emails in our inbox. What is the combination of products that serves us best to be able to be found when customers are searching? We’ve looked at third-party solutions, emerging solutions, and in this case—we’re lucky being a tech company—at our own products. Naturally we have a content marketing strategy so our content is relevant and can be found on Google at the point of need. Not proactively pushing it into inboxes, but ready to be found when the customer is looking. Once they find us, we can engage with them and continue to advance their journey.

If our goal is to improve CX, what are the specific actions we want to take? We want to move away from pushing out marketing messages like email, and toward letting customers come to us and engage at their point of need.

Then we ask what type of technology we need. That could turn into a broad discussion about if we need to change our content marketing strategy, or about how we nurture our customers and provide them the right information. Once we’ve identified those big blocks, we look at the specific technology pieces.

Then the business case kind of builds itself. You’re saying this is what we want to do, this is how we want to do it, and these are the technologies we need to deploy it.

A big part of it is working with our business—operations, sales, front end of customer journey—and leadership team to make sure what we’re doing aligns.

Once we’ve done all that, that technology implementation is the relatively easy part in this day and age. The challenge becomes working with people and educating them on new ways of defining things.

So for instance, that sending fewer emails will improve customer experience and drive better results. There’s always skepticism involved.

People say, “I’m sending out 1000 emails with a 1% open rate and we’re getting a certain return from that. Why do I need to change it?” The conversation at that point is, “it may be working well today, but look at the trends: people are opening less email, paying less attention to information being pushed to them, and using more search and social recommendations to go find information they need.”

We have to educate and enable our people so they can go through the journey with us.

And then of course one of the most important pieces is being able to provide results: how was our email working before vs our end-to-end personalization programs now?

CZ: Can you give any other examples of what SAP does to make sure employees are drivers of technological transformation, rather than reticent toward adapting it?

ST: Our leadership is very in tune with asking, “why are we doing this?” and always bringing it back to a business objectives. When we’re able to explain it internally, then usually we’re able to explain it to our employees very well—it will drive leads, revenue, etc.

Marketing changes almost every 18-24 months completely. The key is bringing employees along on that journey.

Right now, we’re putting in place a heavy duty training program for our employees, so they can build up their digital skill sets for the future. Those skill sets change every 2-3 years, because the market is moving so fast. We want not just our leadership, but every single employee in SAP marketing to be thinking about the skill sets of the future, technologies of the future, and new ways of doing business to drive results.

Change requires a big amount of culture and mindset shift.

In the old world, SAP used to sell on-premise software. The customer would buy their own server, their own computers, and deploy the software. They would pay for the software once and then use it forever. Now, that model has completely changed. With cloud and SaaS, customers are paying a subscription—they’re essentially renting it as they go, which is a huge shift in the market.

From a marketing standpoint, focusing on the point of sale is now just the first step in the customer journey. What used to be kind of the last step—the customer bought the software—has become the first. Now, they need to deploy it, they need to be productive on it, and they need to continue to use it, or they’ll go to your competition. They don’t have a big investment in it, and can just change providers. The care of a customer after they’ve bought something from us is now tremendously important for a company like SAP. That’s a huge shift in mindset for employees—now thinking about the entire customer life cycle.

We started an initiative called Customer First, thinking about how we can have customers for life. Where are our customers in their journey? Are they productive? Are they making use of it? Are they getting business value from it? That’s been a big change for us.

So again, we focus on educating employees on what the new business model is and why it’s changing, and what new technologies they need to think about.

With that, it’s also changing the internal KPIs and metrics we use for success. Now we think about how marketing contributes to adoption and customer lifetime value. KPIs, employee mindsets, technologies we use, and processes we follow internally all have to shift. That’s a big change we’ve driven internally in marketing over the last couple years.

CZ: Search is obviously a key channel to be able to pick up on customer signals without sending a bunch of emails. What’s your view on the changing role of search, and the role of search as part of the broader marketing transformation?

ST: To me search is the most important starting point for any conversation you’re going to have in the future with a customer. Forget B2B and enterprise technology, the business that we’re in. In our personal lives, if you’re thinking about buying a new exercise machine or a new book, where do you go? You go to Google, or Bing, or DuckDuckGo, or whatever your preferred search engine is. That’s the starting point of the customer journey today.

From our perspective, it’s incredibly important to think about how we show up on search. We’ve made a lot of investments in paid search, but we also think about SEO for our own content. Our content strategy is highly based on search—we make sure that our content, thought leadership, research, and the work we’re doing actually ends up being seen by customers. The way to do that is through search.

It’s the ultimate editorial of our time. If you don’t show up on the first page of Google search results, you might as well have called it a day and gone home, because it’s never going to be seen by your customers. From our standpoint, one of the most important things is to make sure that each of our products shows up in the search results for their categories. We make sure our owned, earned, and paid efforts align with our search strategy. This is a change that’s been around for quite some years. We’ve been working with Google, Bing, and others. Search engines have been highly relevant to us for more than five years now in terms of thinking about search as a logical starting point in the customer journey.

CZ: As things like voice search increase, for example, what’s your view on that?

ST: I think of it in two parts. Already in the last couple years, with a large volume of search moving from desktop to mobile, the relevance of the number of search results became much more important. You could see maybe fifteen results on your desktop, but you only see five on your mobile. That’s point 1. Point 2 is that when you then go to voice, it goes from five to maybe one result.

Not only do you have to have a proactive search engine strategy, you also have to have a very proactive brand strategy.

We as a company are one of the most valuable brands in the world—the 17th most valuable according to the latest brand rankings. We’re one of the most valuable brands in Europe. That helps us stand out from the crowd. It helps us get recognized.

Voice search is highly relevant—we’re thinking about it every single day. The number of results is shrinking, and people are paying attention to fewer things.

A combination of a more proactive search strategy and a stronger brand—we’ve gone from #21 to #17 just this year—both of those things help our rankings. Some people see our results and can’t tell a difference from one company to another. As consumers we tend to go with brands that are recognized, trusted, and have been in the business for a long time. The value of brand is not to be underestimated in this day and age.

from IM Tips And Tricks https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/09/19/89580/qa-sap-digital-transformation-search from Rising Phoenix SEO https://risingphxseo.tumblr.com/post/178313390465

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kellykperez · 6 years ago