Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2024 i The European Business Review

In the contemporary digital era, innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI) are profoundly transforming the business landscape (De Cremer, 2020). The buzz surrounding ChatGPT, coupled with recent assertions about the sentience of Google's LaMDA, a large language model, underscore the prominence of chatbot technology in these advancements (Adamopoulou & Moussiades, 2020; Ryu & Lee, 2018; Tiku, 2022). Customer-oriented chatbots, an emergent application of this tech, offer unparalleled efficiency and cost-effectiveness, operating ceaselessly and responding to client inquiries in real time (Salesforce, Research, 2019). Yet, amidst these advantages lies an ethical conundrum. Customers cherish genuine human interaction and can become quickly disillusioned when they realise they're communicating with a bot, not a person (Ciechanowski, Przegalinska, Magnuski & Gloor, 2019). Balancing this desire for authenticity with the allure of operational efficiency poses…

How to cure a major (mental) illness? The cure does not involve years of painful soul searching, psychotherapy, or complex cognitive behaviour therapy. The cure is cheap, effective and instant. Now that should get the attention of the NHS executives as well as the medical profession! The secret? Abolish the illness category. This is what has happened to the diagnosis of being Passive-Aggressive. Psychiatric diagnosis has always been difficult and unreliable. It was said years ago that the best way to cure schizophrenia in America was to bring patients to England, where they might be considered only “eccentric” or “somewhat quirky”. Schizophrenia is, or was, diagnosed less frequently here than in the USA. Christopher Hitchens pointed out that the Catholic Church has abolished the concept of “limbo”, the place certain…

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE THE QUEST FOR AI'S SENSORY PERCEPTION With OpenAI's ChatGPT flaunting sensory capabilities and Meta introducing AI chatbot personalities, the crescendo of AI's role in our lives is unmistakable. While these advancements showcase the leaps AI has made, there's a subtext here: these AI systems are mirroring complex human communication capabilities. It's easy to get entangled in the glitz of AI's capabilities and miss the fundamental question: should AI aim to mirror human faculties or should it charter a different course? As we analyse OpenAI and Meta's innovations, the growing capability of AI to emulate human-like behaviour cannot be ignored. However, a closer look, underpinned by scientific evidence, unveils the intricate layers involved and prompts important inquiries about the direction AI should take. To begin with, the architecture of…

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 1 THE AI FACTORY PARADIGM SHIFT The beginnings of artificial intelligence (AI) can be traced back to Alan Turing's visionary ideas in the 1950s. Today, AI drives many successful businesses such as Netflix's video recommendations1, Airbnb's assorted rentals, Google search, and Hubspot's copilot software codes2. Although often used interchangeably, AI and digital technologies differ, with AI representing a more powerful subset focused on tasks requiring human intelligence. With these unique characteristics, the emergence of the “AI factory” model has marked a significant paradigm shift, where companies are leveraging data and deep machine learning algorithms at their core. Many companies are moving towards this new AI factory model, including incumbents. Companies such as Lockheed Martin3, BBVA4, Cleary Gottlieb5 and EQT Ventures6 present a variety of applications, from transactional legal…

BUSINESS INNOVATION KEY TAKEAWAYS 1 83% of our survey respondents believe that edge computing will be essential to remaining competitive in the future but only 65% are using edge today. 2 Super Integrators — edge adopters that tie edge to business in transformation adoption — comprise just 6% of edge adopters across the globe and 5.5% of those in Europe, but gain the most in terms of efficiency, cost reduction and capitalising on revenue opportunities. 3 Our three-step framework for optimal edge adoption includes strategising for edge, scaling edge across the enterprise and strengthening allied capabilities such as operations and human resources. Edge computing, in step with an overall cloud strategy, can play a major role in bending enterprises' innovation curve. Much of innovation today comes from companies that adopt…

THE CHALLENGE FOR INDIVIDUALS Individuals are caught in what Zygmunt Bauman called “liquid life“1, which means that they are deeply immersed in a consumer society, relentlessly pursuing satisfaction at an accelerated pace, longing and shifting towards authenticity, embracing individual uniqueness, and enhancing capacity to collaborate generously with others (by leading, sharing knowledge, helping, or even teaching others) as well as with AI-equipped robots. The demands of contemporary work life require a significant focus on knowledge acquisition, a diverse set of collaborative skills, and the ability to navigate under different circumstances and unknown consequences. In this intricate landscape, seeking support or assistance from teammates, colleagues, or managers becomes essential for effective functioning. Regardless of one's function, responsibilities, or role in a company, the interdependence among team members is and will become…

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE With the weekly drumbeat of Generative AI advancements and corporate leaders signalling the need for their organ-isations to make progress in harnessing the power of AI, larger questions are emerging for these same executives to address. In addition to the ethical challenges that AI presents for their customers, employees, and society, companies must grapple with how AI will fundamentally shift their operating model including the workforce they employ today. Ignoring the seismic shifts brought about by AI, and in particular, Large Language Models (LLMs) is no longer a viable option for organisations. The torrent rise of AI, championed by industry titans such as OpenAI, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidia, is rapidly reshaping how work gets done and how companies operate and deliver value to their customers and shareholders.…

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Large language models (LLMs), exemplified by Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4 (GPT-4) from OpenAI, launched the year 2023, ushering in a new revolution in AI and machine learning. While traditional machine learning models often rely on single-source data sets, LLMs, built on transformer neural network architectures, undergo training on an unprecedented scale of compute and data. This results in impressive capabilities, encompassing tasks that were once exclusive to humans, such as reasoning, abstraction, and projection. As we explore the potential of these models, it's essential to contemplate the future. Here are five predictions. LLMs WILL BECOME (EVEN) BETTER SKILLED In less than a year, LLMs have delivered an impressive evolution, expanding from text-based generative AI to incorporating voice and vision in models like GPT4.0. Looking back, the original GPT…

STRATEGY & MANAGEMENT There are very few people who haven't experienced some form of conflict at work at some point in their career. Managers fall out with their direct reports over performance issues, team members come to blows as a result of differing working styles, colleagues clash with each other over whether work has been allocated fairly or whether some are being treated more favourably than others. As recent headlines graphically illustrate, we are also seeing an increasing amount of alleged bullying, sexual harassment, misconduct, and discrimination of all kinds. The working world is clearly not a happy place for many people. It seems that our offices, shops, and factories are becoming increasingly confrontational, vitriolic, and toxic. It's a problem that is costing industry dearly, in both human and financial…