2 Min SKSM

Continuing my previous blog  FASCINATION AND TRAP OF AI, ML, BLOCKCHAIN , this lure is not limited to management only. Industry, as well, such as Agriculture has seen much pompous joy towards these technologies and talking "Agriculture 4.0" day in and out. More and more entrepreneurs are creating startups, impressions and scaling up horizontally across globes and then vanishing serially without making a scratch on surface. Industry has a prestigious name for this post as well "Serial Entrepreneur". Because the problem statement here is not to create "Painkillers" but to use new-age technologies and possibly make some "Vitamins" as by-products.  Case in point: One of the Indian Company used Image processing, AI and ML to predict possible pest attack. When I asked what is the efficacy, the ground staff said it's accuracy is 50-50. Well my coin can do a better job than this because it costs not more than 1 Rs! How and when of Industry Revolution

 Any consultant who says "Future is in AI, Ml or Blockchain", he/she has to be looked upon with jaundiced eye.  These new-age technologies have become such buzzwords that have created cognitive traps for executives. If the company wants to be disruptive, executives are to be seen as visionary, they have to invest in them, don't they! What is AI and ML? When it's difficult to predict from data using rule based logic i.e. "if...then", we can think of deploying Machine Learning which can generalize predictive capability to solve more and more similar problems repeatedly. If there are no generalization then it is probably pure statistics and normal software. If the entire system can run autonomously and reaches a level where intervention of human intelligence is no more required, it is called AI. A good principle to assess if ML can be used is, can a human predict from your stored data. In the end output of system cannot have information that are not available i

Once my father asked "why do we learn science?"  I said "to control Nature." He smiled and said "Don't be so arrogant. It is to understand Nature."  I under-graduated from a university which has a motto "तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय" meaning "from darkness to light". Then I joined another university for graduation which has a motto विद्या विनियोगाद्विकास! meaning "Development through the distribution or application of knowledge." These noble ideologies shaped my 'conservative' mind frame.  Then I see this advertisement which is wrong in so many ways.  Are money and social recognition new yardstick of success? Why are kids/ parents to be informed about EARLY SUCCESS of Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates in ad campaigns? Why do kid and codes have to be published on Facebook and YouTube pages? Is it to boost parent's ego, increase peer pressure or confirm social standards? Is this ethical marketing practice at all?

"We are still coding, you will get UAT build after Sprint 5 i.e. after 6 months" "We understand this is not so user friendly. But this is as per Business requirement. We cant change it" "The UI is not intuitive. But UAT is not a phase where we can change Business requirement." Many customers may have heard software vendors passing these comments in review discussion for a project which was supposed to be completed with AGILE model. Beware, they are all waterfall vendors mis-branding themselves as Agile.  Agile is not set of tools or techniques but a philosophy. I call it AGILE-ISM: more C ollaboration, more C ommunication, open to more C hanges to provide the most  C ustomer centric product. Scrum, Sprints, Retros, Kanban - all are just tools and techniques. Project has to be released sooner so that customer can start using it. Changes have to accepted so that project is not obsolete. What is agreed upon between customer and vendor is not list of features