Digital Creative AI art ..

Can White Artificial Intelligence (AI) be beneficial to mankind ?

We humans are used to the term Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning etc in the context of Industry 4.0. But in the rush to propagate new advanced technology,  we frequently overlook the disadvantages of these new technologies. As much as these new technologies bring in benefits and gains to humanity, it can also be equally dangerous and detrimental to humanity.

It cannot think outside the box for solutions to environmental and societal degradation, 

We are looking to the times when AI / ML will 

• cost heavily to implement and use
• have bias that can be ethically incorrect and work against a community or group in society
• be emotionless, unable to assess the opposite party's feedback and act appropriately on it
• subject to hacking it can be dangerous to humans and the environment and lead to inappropriate actions
• pose threat to information security 
• pose threat to individual privacy
• be environmentally polluting and cause harm
  
• liable to be hacked and pose physical threat to humans etc ..

The solution to all this could be White AI. Usually the colour white is associated with peace, justice, welfare, growth, development etc. 

White AI which could be 

• beneficial to all living beings on the planet, all flora and fauna, in the long run. 
• work with humans to benefit planet earth and humanity on the whole, beneficial to humanity, 
• collaborate with humans to bring growth and development to humanity
  
• do repetitive tasks with great accuracy 
• remove the risks associated with human errors
• carry out unbiased decision-making
• secure and safe from data thefts and hacking and so on.
  

While green AI could be environmentally sustainable and have low carbon footprints, white AI could additionally be beneficial to mankind and all flora and fauna on earth, possess low operational risks and bring peace to planet earth.

Even though this cannot be easily attained, this could be the basis on which all future AI developments should be happening.

George..

Google Artificial Intelligence, a great friend..

We have all the time been hearing, and indeed have a lingering fear in the back of our heads of how AI can replace humans and how it could be a threat to humanity in the long run. But carrying out an instance of an effective case of human-AI classroom collaboration, this impression is getting a changeover.

Human-AI collaboration is the study of how humans and artificial intelligence agents work together to accomplish a shared goal. AI systems can aid humans in everything from decision making tasks to art creation. -wikipedia

Human-AI symbiosis means interactions between humans and AI can make both parties smarter over time - H. Jarrahi

Here we explain a case of human-AI collaboration which is maturing into case of human AI symbiosis.

An AI depiction of Alliance University

A very practical case of human AI collaboration has happened in the MBA sem 3 Operations classroom in Alliance University Bangalore, India from August 2022- Dec 2022 when in the MBA third semester subject of Operations Strategy and Environmental Sustainability,  in about 20 sessions, the 46 students had the benefit of taking 22 quizzes, ie. at the rate of 1.1 quiz for every classroom session, besides four internet based multimedia quizzes too. The benefits this has brought to the student community is being assessed. 

 

In a 2020 study (click here) conducted at the Iowa state University in US it was found that the students who were quizzed at least once a week tend to do better in their understanding and grades than those who were not. The AI intervention in this case was not in the quiz administration but in the help offered by Google AI that helped the faculty member to prepare the high quality  quizes with the help of AI resources.

The multiple quizzes which were administered almost on a daily basis would not have been possible but for the big help offered by the Free and Open Source software MOODLE, the Learning Management System (LMS software) in Alliance University, Bangalore, to a very large extent Google AI and the Google cloud.

In quick feedback taken from students, they were positive at being able to assess for themselves their own understanding of the concepts, get almost daily and weekly feedback on their improved awareness of subject fundamentals to help improve their performance in the subject. Final exams are almost a fortnight away, student performance at that would highlight the real benefit of AI in aiding and improving student academic achievements, understanding and grades.

Google Decision Tree AI algorithms aided in preparing questions that  accessed the extremes of human ingenuity, understanding and comprehension in each subject area, which was otherwise impractical and out of reach of human intelligence and perseverance. Entire case studies were also prepared courtesy Google AI.

Looking forward eagerly to complete this Human-AI collaboration classroom exercise this semester and analyse the results in depth over the coming weeks and see this mature into a human AI symbiosis exercise soon. This would result in spanning out further  human-AI collaboration classroom exercises for other courses and get a comprehensive outcome, promising or otherwise, that could further push the boundaries of student understanding, grip and mastery over a subject domain and help the student community the world over.

George 

Competition and Strategy for EPGDM .. AI, Positivity and optimism in action ...

It was with a little trepidation that I undertook the challenge when our Area Chair Sukanya asked me whether I could engage the subject of Competition and Strategy for EPGDM term 3 students, core subject, in the city campus. I had to prepare the syllabus, was given the choice to choose the text books and had to finish the course in 5 sessions of 4 hrs each spread over 5 weekends, had to give 2 assignments and assess it and prepare objective quiz questions for each week, about 40 questions each, total 5 quizzes.

It was a minor interesting challenge. I have been teaching the subject of Operations Strategy for Operations students for the past 5 or more years and have been reading on core Operations strategy related topics from HBR and other quality reading material for many years. With all optimism and positive thinking, I took up the challenge. I knew Artificial Intelligence was by my side too.

I started hunting around for general strategy text books and somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew Michael Porter from Harvard Business school is the big daddy or dada in strategy. So from Amazon I ordered all the three Strategy books by Porter, Competitive Strategy (1980), Competitive Advantage (1985) and Competitive Advantage for Nations (1990). Started reading them. All the three were classic ones, 500 pages+ each with in-depth content. 

Reading and understanding Porter's content in detail was taking too much time. I understood no text book considered strategy in the depth to which Porter handled it in his books. So I understood I need not go in such depth to deliver the subject to EPGDM students. I am anyhow reading the three strategy books penned by Porter during free time. 

To ensure that I give the best strategy classroom sessions in the world, I even went to the extent of going through some of the basic books that have helped the field of strategy over the past three thousand years. Plato's Republic (4th century BC) and Homer's Illiad (8th century BC) gave me good insight into how the field of strategy has developed and blossomed over the recent modern times. Homer's Iliad, in fact, laid the foundation for the growth and development of western civilization and culture over the past three thousand years, while we know Egyptian, Middle East, Arab, Indian and Chinese civilizations are more older than the western one.

I started reading Porter's Competitive Strategy anyway. When on a Saturday afternoon for LOM class I met Praveen, EPGDM in the F1 campus, he gave me a text book which i found interesting - Strategic Management, by Hill, Schilling and Jones, 12 edition, Cengage Publishing. After each session I also had to prepare quiz of min 40 - 50 questions to be given to the Assistant, Bhogaan who would with Hussain, the IT person, put up a Moodle (Free and Open Source software) quiz for the students to take over a  aweek. 

It was here Google Artificial Intelligence became a great help. I used Google AI to convert speech to text for transcribing  the quiz questions, Google AI helped me with the spelling and grammatical mistakes. Google AI additionally helped me to give more than a 360 degree view of the topic and prepare relevant and appropriate questions for the quiz. 

Every weekend with some basic text editing to put the question in the Aiken format, within 2 hrs of an average, I could set up the quiz questions for each week. All the while I was using the Google cloud and Google was my best friend during this 2 month period of preparations and delivery of the subject of Competition and Strategy for the EPGDM term 3 students.

The classes started by the last week of November, Saturday 3 to 7.30 PM. I engaged classes for 4 consecutive weeks as one weekend we were in Tiruvalla, Kerala for my cousin Joy's (Kerala Chief Secretary) daughter's marriage.  I have to wait for the feedback from the students to get to know how effective I was and whether I need to improve, read more and deliver more quality content if I am given the subject again next term.

I heaved a sigh of relief when I completed it two days back. It was a challenge that I executed with great precision and preparation and i feel content that the experience besides helping me take the subject, has made me more informed about crucial strategy issues when I handle Operations subjects in the coming days. It was a great blessing in disguise. I am bustling with enthusiasm and energy now, radiating lot of self confidence and positive energy.

Looking forward to more such challenges that will enrich my knowledge and require me to do lot of reading.

George.

Michael Porter classics on Strategy and Competitive advantage..

It was about 3 weeks back that I was asked by Dr Sukanya, Area chair for Operations at Alliance School of Business Bangalore whether I could engage the subject of Competition and strategy for EPGDM students, a term 3 core paper. It was a challenge that I accepted with open hands. 

Immediately I got to the task of collecting the masterpiece reference books from the all-time strategy expert of the world, Prof. Michael Porter of Harvard Business School from Amazon.

1. Competitive Strategy, published in 1980 by Free Press, 

2. Competitive Advantage published in 1985 again by Free Press and  

3. Competitive Advantage for Nations, 1985, all written by Prof. Michael Porter of Harvard Business school in Boston USA.

Competitive Strategy, published in 1980, I have completed reading about 35% and it was getting tough to proceed and understand. In order not to waste time and acquire a rich different total strategy perspective, I started simultaneously with the second 1985 Porter magnum opus, Competitive Advantage.

I should admit both of the strategy classic books by Prof. Porter are not stuff for fast and easy reading. 500 to 600 page each, these are hard nuts to crack. Each line, each para and each page is heavy and powerful. Unless one reads each para a second or third time, one cannot understand the different concepts explained with great care, poise, detail and  attention by Porter.

I started reading the books by third week of October '22 and first week of November '22 respectively. They are real tough nuts for me to crack, but not others. But I am not going to leave it unread. Understand whatever I can, to whatever depth I can, the rest will follow. The perspective I get will be a great asset for me for the future. I look forward to meet Prof Porter, now 75, in the near future or listen to him in real life.

Today I will get the third volume in this series by Porter, Competitive advantage for Nations from Amazon.

Before the start of the term by mid November and through the next five weeks from 19 November '22, I intend to read the first two all time strategy classics by Porter. 

Once again a humble pranaam before this great Strategy Professor of all time. Though I have read a decently good number of books, including Homer's Illiad and partly Odyssey, of 800 BC which laid the foundation for the growth of western civilisation and the great Greek Plato classics of 350 BC, these two books also belong to the above classics list without any doubt.

George 

Chinnu assembles Kullen chest of drawers

We bought two sets of IKEA Kullen chest of drawers, one for master bedroom and the other for the guest room. I just prodded Chinnu to carry out the assembly at home yesterday. With a little help from us she did an excellent job. 

Our vacation in Wayanad Oct '22 ..

 

Our visit to Wayand from 22 Oct to 26 October was interesting and fun. With help from Prof. Alice Mani from Christ College Bangalore, who came with us, the stay and travel was previously arranged. Also the trips inside Wayanad were earlier arranged by Alice's students. In short, in just three days, we got to visit lot of places. Value for money !!

We as we could visit almost 15 places of interest starting from the Orthodox church in Sulthan battery to the numerous lakes where we did paddle boating, walked on bridges, glass bridges (first time in India), saw dams, waterfalls etc. We also visited the famous tribal settlement, En Ooru, (my village) where we could get in close touch with many tribal lifestyle, customs, foods and musical instruments, not tribals. They have all withdrawn deep inside the forests.

One tribal instrument for sale was the tribal flute, which does not have any holes punched to be covered by the fingers to give beauitiful sound. Instead, here instead of holes, the flute had to be swirled around catching at one end and it would produce a gentle sound that changes in frequency and pitch with the speed and direction.

The glass bridge at Thollaayiram Kandi was an unforgettable visit. After a very grueling climb inside a 4x4 drive jeep almost a distance of 8 kms uphill, we stepped on the glass bridge that gave us a bird's eye view of the surrounding valley. This is India's first and only glass bridge and a very interesting experience. For a person with acrophobia (fear of heights) it could be very dangerous and painful. Similar glass bridge videos I have seen coming out of China.

The food was good, we did same basic shopping,  saw lot of places, museums fish aquariums, the old Hindu temple under which Tippu is said to have escaped to Mysore and the Wayanad heritage museum. Though lot of zip rides, 500m, 1 km long, were available at all the bridge sites at heights of 100-200 ft, we did not undertake any due to lack of interest.

As the famous saying goes, a mind that is stretched by a new experience, be that from travel, visiting a place or reading a book, can never go back to its old state of existence. Our minds have been stretched by this experience and we are looking for more experiences and mind stretches in the coming days.

We undertook this visit for the experience of seeing Wayanad and places around. Even though I have been to Wayand at age 14, father working as Manager in SBI Kalpetta, the memories then were not strong and vivid, except for visits to Malayalam Plantations tea estates near Sulthan Bathery. Now when I visited the place with family, the stay and the moments spent there have become priceless. It has stretched my mind for ever and etched indelible impressions.

As different from earlier years, it is a good sign to understand that the government is taking many sincere efforts to promote tourism in Kerala, the people were friendly and helpful.

George..