Enterprise hits and misses - AI ethics gets a fresh critique and retailers get a pre-holiday reckoning

Enterprise hits and misses - AI ethics gets a fresh critique, and retailers get a pre-holiday reckoning Jon Reed Sun, 11/22/2020 - 21:47

Summary:
This week - AI ethics gets a fresh critique - and the gap between lofty AI talk and project needs is exposed. Also: as we push into holiday season, retailers get one more omni-grade. Enterprise buyers share their COVID-19 era agendas, a

nd the whiffs keep comin'. Yes, Twitter Fleets makes the cut.

Lead story - Revisiting ethical AI - where do organizations need to go next? MyPOV: Neil has been exposing faux ethicists and AI fashionistas bringing a probing eye to AI ethics on diginomica for the last year and a half. In his latest, he offers conclusions on his research to date. It’s not a pretty picture out there… We’re getting lost in an academic exercise: There is an overemphasis on the topic of ethics, per se, rather than the pragmatics of how to do this work ethically. It’s complicated by the many and emerging declarations of “principles” by governments, regulators, academics, and now, “ethicists.” This bumper-crop of well-meaning academics do provide needed counsel and guidance on the foundational concepts of ethics and moral philosophy. But the tendency of them to wade into implementation guidance is, well, unethical.

Ouch. At their best, collegial AI debates can have intellectual vigor. But Neil is right: this isn’t doing anything to help projects on the ground. Lacking technical expertise in the discipline (AI) or experience implementing, they are unqualified for that aspect. However, I’ve seen a trend of ethicists inserting themselves into these programs. Besides, developing successful AI applications requires knowing how to navigate the fiefdoms and politics in an organization and, often, to finesse resource holders to push the technology out the door. Lacking that experience, their contribution is limited.

So how do we apply AI ethics practically? Neil breaks out issues for AI projects to address, from the algorithmic temptations of high volume (which can create uniformity), to embedded AI, to blending data sources, to considering the social context of so-called “smart” products. Then there is the issue of algorithmic bias, and ethical responsibility for data ownership. That’s coming in part two - look for that on diginomica this week. Diginomica picks - my top stories on diginomica this week Retail blowout - a tale of three brands. Stuart takes on three iconic brands with very different retail report cards, with Macy’s looking to spark an “essential business” debate:

Digital growth slips at Macy’s as CEO asks what’s the difference between ‘essential’ and ‘non-essential’ retail? - “The likes of Target and Walmart - essential retailers both - have blown away Wall Street with their online performance. Little wonder then that [CEO] Gennette is desperate to avoid more lockdowns and to keep his store fleet open for business.” Happy Holidays! Walmart heads into Black Friday on the back of 79% e-commerce growth (but still chalks up an online loss) - Walmart’s digital numbers are looking up, but will Walmart Plus be able to take a chunk from Amazon Prime? Target hits the Holidays season with $6.5 billion in digital sales to date this year - and the busiest online quarter to come - I’ve been mocking omni-channel self-congratulations and premature awards overdose on diginomica for years, but get a load of this: “Around 75% of digital sales were fulfiled by stores in recent months, according to CEO Brian Cornell.” That bodes well for the holidays, eh?

More picks:

Companies shouldn’t hide behind COVID-19 for poor customer experience - Madeline scores diginomica title of the week. Her riff on this Zendesk study just about sums it up, eh? Ad hoc interactions in the age of virtual work - an unsolved problem - Even a remote work advocate like myself has to admit it: Kurt pinpoints an issue we haven’t solved - the spontaneous inspiration sparked by “water cooler moments.”  A group of MIT researchers is pressing the “instant video” option, via a proof of concept called Minglr. I’ve tested HopIn’s version of this - I’m a fan. Use of AI in the NHS is leading to a 30-times improvement in early cancer detection rates - Cath with the kind of AI story even I can get behind.

Vendor analysis, diginomica style. Here’s my three top choices from our vendor coverage:

Salesforce data finds new tech becomes top priority for financial services sector as COVID drives consumer behavior shift - Stuart Workday closes out strong Q3 2021, tempered with a pragmatic note of caution about what lies ahead - Stuart Workplace VP Julien Codorniou on Facebook’s enterprise-wide appeal and roadmap - Phil

Assessing Unit4’s buyer survey - a two-part missive by Den Howlett. Unit4’s buyer survey had enough meat on the bone for two pieces from Den. One examined the implications of buyer views (cloud, innovation, etc). Part two looked at the impact on software users:

Unit4 survey looks at the buyer landscape. Part 1, buyer beliefs Unit4 survey looks at the buyer landscape. Part 2, the people element

A few more vendor picks:

Putting digital transformation to the pandemic test - how Casey’s convenience stores delivered for its customers - SAP CX use case, Jon Meeting employees where they are - ServiceNow integrates with Workplace from Facebook - Derek iSolved wants to move up the HCM food chain - is that possible? - Den

Jon’s grab bag - As Brexit races towards us, Derek asks: What has digital government in the UK learned during the COVID-19 crisis? (No contract tracing app snark allowed here, folks!) Den unloads a can of ethical whoop-ass on the carnies invigorating leaders who cashed out before proving out in If Pfizer and Moderna executives can use the 10b5-1 rule to advantage without blinking, then what hope for a meaningful ethics discussion in technology? Finally, Den announced phase one of our diginomica text-to-speech audio rollout in We haz audio, check it out. For now, you’ll see/hear it in select articles. Going forward, we’ll see. Nope, no audio on hits and misses for now - strikethroughs and automated audio don’t mix (though I am now doing a weekly video show inspired by hits and misses). Best of the enterprise web

My top six

Contact Tracing Apps Were Big Tech’s Best Idea for Fighting COVID-19. Why Haven’t They Helped? - Therein lies an unfortunate tale… Without one simple answer. Agility in the time of COVID-19: Changing your operating model in an age of turbulence -  Can organizations be transformed while employees are working remotely? McKinsey looks to answer their own question with four fresh use cases. Ethical Frameworks for AI Aren’t Enough - Neil Raden isn’t the only one questioning the AI ethics bandwagon… (What You Always Wanted to Know About) Coupa Acquiring LLamasoft - TEC’s PJ Jakovljevic digs into the “whys” of Coupa’s recent acquisitions… A quick framework on quitting the right way at work - Before you quit your job or junk your gig, check this missive from Vijay Vijayasankar. Mourning the Death of the Data-Driven Supply Chain Guy - Lora Cecere penned a beautiful tribute to a friend - and supply chain expert - gone too soon.

Whiffs Goofy headlines continue to be a hallmark of pandemic life. Check these keepers:

Canadian officials warn drivers not to let moose lick their cars (the signage is priceless) Gabe Newell sends Half-Life’s Gnome Chompski into space tomorrow Police Stranded On Bad Road On Way To Disperse Protest Against Bad Roads

Twitter Fleets has some technorati in a tizzy, but fortunately, not all: Twitter Fleets prove social-media innovation is dead. Please wake me up when something interesting happens… Speaking of which, more “innovation” that stretches the limits of that term to include a yawning cavern of mediocrity:

Amazon’s new Alexa feature uses AI to infer what users really want https://t.co/vYgMoUUjwt -> so far, it’s tone-deaf crud, closer to hyper-commercialization than hyper-personalization. But thanks for the Thanksgiving suggestions given there is no purchase history to support it — Jon Reed (@jonerp) November 22, 2020

More grouching:

“Grouchy Jon” made an appearance on a PR email response today about the automagical future of AI in 2022: “I can’t stand predictions pieces… and that was before last year when the pandemic exposed the entire IT predictions industry as a fraud…..” cc: @BrianSSommer — Jon Reed (@jonerp) November 19, 2020

Some things break through the cynicism, however. Like Britney Spears' contribution to the high seas:

Britney Spears' music used to drive away Somali pirates https://t.co/xMbvaOuOVP “A blast of Britney is all it takes to send the pirates packing.” -> My only concern is this might constitute a war crime…. — Jon Reed (@jonerp) November 19, 2020

See you next week; for those who celebrate Thanksgiving, I think we can come up with something to be thankful for by then… If you find an #ensw piece that qualifies for hits and misses - in a good or bad way - let me know in the comments as Clive (almost) always does. Most Enterprise hits and misses articles are selected from my curated @jonerpnewsfeed. ‘myPOV’ is borrowed with reluctant permission from the ubiquitous Ray Wang.

Image credit - Waiter Suggesting Bottle © Minerva Studiom, Overworked Businessman © Bloomua, Businessman Choosing Success or Failure Road © Creativa - all from Fotolia.com.

Disclosure - Oracle, Workday, Unit4, ServiceNow, Zendesk, Workfront and Salesforce are diginomica premier partners as of this writing.

Read more on:
Hits and misses

Author: Jon Reed

Date: 2020-11-23

URL: https://diginomica.com/enterprise-hits-and-misses-ai-ethics-gets-fresh-critique-and-retailers-get-pre-holiday-reckoning

diginomica.com