AIIM Conference | Artificial Intelligence (AI)
There are some important sessions planned for The AIIM Conference this year. Topics range from artificial intelligence to business process automation and data analytics and beyond. But none will be more informative than a session planned by David Jacopille from Massachusetts Financial Services titled “Bot Bootcamp: How to Manage Your Artificial Employees.” I spoke recently with David and asked him to give us a preview of what to expect.
David, the use of Artificial Intelligence and ‘bots’ is getting a lot of attention. But you say that the trick is making the technology work in day-to-day operations. Is that what your session is about?
Information bots are struggling to do the work of the enterprise. Up to 70% of robotic process automation initiatives will fail or stall. Information bots are not the only ones experiencing problems.
Can you give us an example of what you mean?
Elon Musk spared no expense to build his Tesla factory as a model of robotic automation. In 2018, after years of trying to make it work, Elon announced the automation experiment was not working, and robots would be replaced by people. His explanation: "People are underrated."
Is that the missing ingredient; people?
People learn many important general skills during the first twenty years of their life, most of which have been overlooked by bot designers. We vastly undervalued how important these fundamental abilities are to success.
Tell us more about ‘Bot Bootcamp.’
The session is all about how to manage your artificial employees. In this session you will hear a story about how a group of bots evolved into successful artificial employees by adopting human approaches to work and life.
You advocate for an Agile approach. Tell us more.
Agile is a human working methodology designed to address problems with traditional human management styles. Managers who issue work orders to their employees can become inefficient when things get busy. In my session you will hear the story of how robots discovered Agile, and the unexpected things that happened when we got rid of the manager and let our robots decide for themselves what to work on.
Where do we draw the line between autonomous bots and human collaboration?
Agile gains a lot of strength by promoting collaboration between individuals with diverse skills and perspectives. Co-location, for example, puts everyone close together to promote constant communication and serendipitous collaborations. Our bots originally worked in silos, sharing only essential information. Hear what happened when we created an ambient space between them, allowing every bot to know everything.
Will bots become self-aware?
We began to realize the most powerful things our robots were learning didn't directly relate to the tasks we overtly built them to do. One of the first and most important generic abilities humans learn is self-awareness and knowledge of our world. It seemed like a good idea to make our bots self-aware too. What could possibly go wrong with that? Learn how robot self-awareness solved one of the most difficult bot management problems.
What will attendees take away from your session at AIIM19?
By the end of the story you will be impressed… with yourself! You will want your robots to have more of your amazing abilities, and approach work like you do. I’m looking forward to this down to earth session that will change your view of robots, and perhaps even yourself.
