Almost every sector in the world is waking up to the possibilities and pitfalls of artifical intelligence (AI). Matt Hastings, creator of Ofgem’s Strategic Innovation Fund and now founder of Ideaonomy AI, explains how we need to shake up our thinking to fully exploit its potential.
The creation of Large Language Models is as significant as the discovery of fire. And similarly, it might keep you warm and cosy but could also burn your house to the ground.
Welcome to the AI age – the age of disruption. In this blog I’m going to explore a few potential innovation trends that might shake things up faster than you might expect, starting with the assumption that knowledge isn’t power any more.
1. AI is democratising knowledge
So if you’re sat in a nice office, thinking you’ve got a job for life – chances are, you haven’t. With a good set of chain prompts and custom automations, a teenager with a computer can do five times more than you, at a quarter of the cost.
New industries seem to be emerging at twice the rate of decay. But a lot are ending overnight.
2. Beware of homophily
Not a word you hear that often, but one driven by Plato’s view that ‘birds of a feather flock together’. It can be summarised as groupthink. In sociology, it describes humankind’s natural desire to take comfort from surrounding ourselves with those who share the same views.
Having set up and ran Ofgem’s Strategic Innovation Fund, working across the energy networks, government departments, regulators, investors and industry, I can confidently assert that homophily is lethal – especially when it comes to innovation. It is sand in the engine.
The Covid-19 inquiry recently blamed groupthink for the failures of the UK Government’s pandemic planning. They planned for flu, because that’s what they knew. They failed to think (and do) differently. They were skewed by knowledge bias, using their previous experiences as an anchor to de risk future uncertainty. It didn’t work. Fine when tomorrow looks a lot like today, but not fine when it doesn’t. And let’s face it, tomorrow looks nothing like today.
3. Neural rigidity is high risk
Groupthink is exacerbated by the physical hardwiring of the brain that occurs after many years in the same organisation, doing similar tasks. In neuroscience, this hardwiring is called ‘potentiation’. The theory goes back as far as 1949 when studies showed how brain cells (much like flocking birds), that ‘fire together, wire together’. You, and your brain, actually become stuck.
Homophily and potentiation are red flags; signs of a bygone era of traditional ‘siloism’. If not kept in check, they exacerbate the institutional treacle many of us know all too well. Taking comfort in the old, because it’s less scary than the new.
4. Systems thinking is not the same as systems doing
Siloes are like standing in a circle where everyone pats each other on the back. Egos go round in circles, but nothing moves forward. The silo contains no hope of a positive explosion. And when you’re in one, it is easy to think you’re not. They can blind you to the wonders of the outside world, and trick you into thinking you’re special.
Given the sheer size, number and complexity of the challenges in the energy transition, and how these are shared across sectors such as water and transport, we must recognise that we can’t solve today’s problems using the same mindset that created them in the first place.
We need divergent minds that bring new thinking and new doing. Empowered and inclusive cultures that value the unusual. When knowledge is no longer power, creativity is. Neural plasticity over neural rigidity; starting from the assumption that everything you’re doing today is probably wrong, and going from there.
5. Diversity is critical
So is there some magic, silver bullet of innovation that can help in the age of disruption? Yes – diversity.
The fastest way to become more diverse is not just by hiring in a more inclusive way (although that is essential), it is by collaborating with the unusual suspects. The biggest problem with collaboration in its current form however, is that it doesn’t scale. It is limited to an individual’s ability to network.
6. We need fresh patterns of collaboration…
How we collaborate is currently somewhat limited by a set of outdated tools. Meetings, virtual calls, conferences, workshops and Post-It notes. You’d be forgiven for thinking collaboration was stuck in the past – mainly it is, the Post-It note being invented 50 years ago.
Old-world collaboration is also heavily prone to bias. If 40 people are on a call and someone asks ‘any questions?’, it’s rare to see more than three hands go up. Inclusivity (especially of those who don’t naturally shout loudest) is the hallmark of a diverse and collaborative culture.
7. … and new connections in our ecosystems
One of the great pleasures about working in the UK Government’s innovation agency is getting to see inside the machine and looking out at everything coming in. You see the inefficiency of the ecosystem first-hand.
It’s akin to juggling onions; thousands of little siloes and fiefdoms across both public and private sector, many of which do very similar things. Why solve the same problem 100 times? It’s not a good use of taxpayers’, consumers’ or customers’ money. There is no connective tissue, no string to joins the onions together. Siloes dominate, lessons aren’t shared, and mediocrity ensues as a result.
8. We could have collaborative advantage
Siloed competition might have worked in the 1980s but it doesn’t when faced with major systemic crises like climate change. We couldn’t have landed a rocket on the moon, unless bright minds worked together. By why is this kind of collaboration limited to moon landings or atomic bombs – why not apply it to the climate crises?
The one place that has nailed collaboration at an ecosystem level is nature. Forest ecosystems in particular, where 60,000 species all work together for the betterment of all. Competition is based on how collaborative you are; trees don’t grow tall if they go it alone. They need the power of the group but each species requires, receives and provides something different.
There is diversity, inclusivity, collaboration and creativity. Knowledge is created, stored and translated, creating a sustainable form of innovation infrastructure that has last some 400 million years. How are humans doing by contrast?
Symbiotic collaboration is at the heart of survival in the age of disruption. Solving problems together, rather than on your own, is a great way to protect yourself from from the democratisation of knowledge. It is also the path to greater commercial, social and environmental returns.
Connective tissue at an ecosystem level will help people to collaborate in new and wonderful ways, within and across sectors. It will not be a case of what you know, or who you know – it will be a case of how creative you can be with what you don’t yet know, and who you decide to journey with. Clustering with fascinating strangers, whom you’ve not yet had the pleasure to meet, on a journey into the unknown.
