The need for philosophy
Philosophy is in great shape. More and more young people are enrolling in the philosophy departments of universities around the world. More and more topics of philosophical content find space in public discussion. More and more it is necessary to have some kind of philosophical training in one's curriculum. Finance is also looking for philosophers. The mining industry also looks for them.
President Macron has a degree in philosophy. Sometimes it shows that he is. Great media mogul Rupert Murdoch has a philosophy degree, though he's seen less here. But the vision is there.
Susan Wojcicki, head of YouTube, has a degree in philosophy. Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg, who now leads the field of candidates for the Democratic party nomination, is a philosopher. And he makes no secret of it, on the contrary it is a leitmotiv that serves him to balance his modest political experience as mayor of a small town in Indiana.
The list could go on. We prefer to refer to an article by Alberto Magnani in the "Sole 24 Ore" entitled The "useless" humanities degrees give more and more work.
Why is "philosophical competence" increasingly sought after in a world that appears to be dominated by technology and its practical applications? For three converging reasons.
The need for ethical behavior
The first is that some branches of philosophy, such as linguistics, semiotics, logic and even psychology, are indispensable disciplines for the development of artificial intelligence. The second is that the
philosophical studies give rise to a metaformation that goes beyond narrow specialization and prepares us to face the complexity that requires more thought, abstraction and vision and less "know-how".
The third, perhaps more important than the others, is that ethics, at all levels, is becoming the foundation of the world of the future. Humanity increasingly needs ethical behavior to face the enormous challenges of the present and the immediate future.
The "ethical" key in private, public and collective behavior has become a requirement of responsibility which can no longer be a fig leaf on cynicism and greed. It cannot, also because it can no longer be a mere article of an organization's bylaws. It has to become almost second nature to people and organizations. It must be dramatically operational. This will also allow governments to deregulate and simplify and citizens to be freer in an invisible state.
The epitaph on Kant's grave “The starry sky above me and the moral law within me” is truly the futurist manifesto of the XNUMXst century.
Does scientism explain anything?
Yet the hegemony of technology over other human activities seemed to be the realization of scientistic thought at its highest level of evolution. Philosophy looked like circular thinking on the verge of extinction, like the beautiful white tiger of Siberia.
But the intuition of another great contemporary philosopher who can "compete" with Kant for depth of thought, had already put a tombstone on technological scientism sixty years ago. In a 1960 opening speech, Martin Heidegger warned humanity that "the consequences of technology are anything but technological." That is, they impact metaphysics, the essence of being.
And so it is, as today we begin to see it clearly. How can any technology still be introduced without thinking about its wider consequences on the communities from which it originates and impacts? One cannot act beautifully as has been done so far in the valleys of silicon.
The stakes of the algorithm
The cover of "Chromosome innovation" which deals with the issue of the impact of technology on organizations with important contributions, an impact comparable to that of a meteorite. Available in book and ebook. A book has recently been released in Italian (published by Guerini in hard copy and by goWare in ebook) which collects some contributions by protagonists of the technological revolution such as Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics; Tim O'Reilly, inventor of 2.0; Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM; Andrew W. Moore, head of AI at Google; Reid Hoffman co-founder of LinkedIn.
The book also contains the interventions of some scholars of the MIT Sloan School of Management in Boston, one of the main think tanks in the world for the study of the impact of technology on the economy, on the business system and on society.
The Italian edition of What the Digital Future Holds: 20 Groundbreaking Essays on How Technology is Reshaping the Practice of Management is entitled Cromosoma innovation. This is the first volume of the series "The Future of Management", which offers reading paths taken from the prestigious MIT Sloan Management Review. The Italian edition, edited by Alberto Mattiello, is published in collaboration with Confindustria Piccola Industria.
Undoubtedly technology, as the subtitle of the book states, rewrites the genetics of organizations. Will this rewriting of the genetic code be conducted with a "language" that includes ethics and social responsibility towards communities? Or will algorithms designed agnostically to the ethical issues implicit in the algorithm's consequences prevail?
Well, two of the twenty contributions of Chromosome innovation try to discuss this point. Courtesy of the publisher, they are reproduced in full below.
Ethics and algorithms
di bidhan L. parmar and Robert E. Freeman
University of Virginia professors and authors of Stakeholder Capitalism
Who designs the algorithms?
Do we design the algorithms or do the algorithms design us? Are we really sure we have control over our behavior? Could it be that our actions are the product of a context that has been expertly created by data, analysis and code?
Advances in information technology certainly generate benefits for our lives. We have access to tailor-made services and recommendations, we can delegate ordinary tasks such as driving, cleaning floors, shopping and choosing foods. But it also comes with potential costs.
Concerns about the future of work have led to discussions of universal basic incomes, or, in other words, a wage just for being human. Concerns about the nature of human interactions dominate the discussions. They range from putting your phone away and having real conversations with someone to the powerful dynamic of a society where many people are connected to virtual reality masks.
These themes underlie a greater concern: what shape will we shape our future? What world will information technology help us create?
Advances in IT have made the use of data, especially data about our behavior, an integral part of the online experience.
The code is not neutral
Companies tailor their offerings based on the technology we use: a few years ago travel site Orbitz was found to be diverting Mac users to more expensive travel services than PC owners. Dating sites like eHarmony and Tinder suggest partners based on your stated and implied preferences. New stories are suggested based on what we've read before and our activities on social networks.
Yahoo, Facebook and Google adjust the order, display and ease of choice to prompt us to spend more time on their applications, so they can collect even more data and further insert themselves into our daily transactions.
Progressively, the physical world is being influenced by data. Let's think of autonomous cars or virtual assistants like Siri and Amazon Echo. There are even toys like Hello Barbie that listen, record and analyze our children's speeches and then personalize the interactions and adapt them better.
And as our lives are increasingly impacted by algorithms, we should ask: What will be the effect?
First, it's important to note that the code used to judge us based on our taste in shoes or how we go to work is written by humans, who decide what meaning to attribute to the data and how it should influence our behaviors.
That code is not neutral: it contains many judgments about who we are, who we should become, and how we should live. Should we have access to many choices, or should we be subtly influenced by what to buy on a particular site?
The ethical value of the algorithm
Let's think about the ethical challenges of writing the algorithms for an autonomous car. In certain unfortunate circumstances, where an accident cannot be avoided, the algorithm that runs the car will presumably have to choose whether to sacrifice its occupants or risk injuring, possibly fatally, the passengers of another car or pedestrians.
How will developers write this code? Despite advances in information technology, data collection and analysis, our judgments about mortality and ethics are all-important, perhaps more so than ever before.
We need to think about how to have better conversations about the role of purpose, ethics and values in this digital world, instead of just assuming that these issues have already been resolved and do not arise because "it's just an algorithm anyway".
Because digital transformation needs a heart
by George westerman
Researcher at MIT Sloan and author of Leading Digital: Turning Technology into Business Transformation
A new type of organization
Three technology-driven forces are transforming the nature of management. Thanks to automation, more and more companies can work without employing human workers. Data-driven management integrates intuition and experience with data and experiments. Resource fluidity assigns the people who are best able to perform them to tasks, whether they are internal or external to the organization.
Taken together, these three forces help leaders rethink how they organize and manage work. Tasks that used to be considered the exclusive domain of people — such as handling customer inquiries, driving vehicles, or writing newspaper articles — can now be performed by machines.
Employees at all levels will have the information they need to make decisions and correct their practices. Computers can diagnose situations and identify difficulties that people don't see.
Real-time information allows you to conduct experiments instead of guessing whether it might work. Employees can organize themselves, get the support of internal and external experts to get the job done. And companies can manage fluctuating resource needs through outsourcing, whether it's through long-term relationships, hourly contracts, or piecework.
The enhancement of the digital dimension
These forces are, overall, positive. They will help managers increase productivity, innovation and customer satisfaction in the coming years. But those running a traditional business must be careful not to let such forces push the management approach to extremes.
In their logical conclusion, these three digital forces can transform management in the worst possible way. Accelerating the flow of resources can turn all workers into contractors, paid only when needed by the company and forced to work a thousand jobs to earn a salary. Data-driven management can become Big Brother, evaluating every employee's action and leading to rapid hiring or firing based solely on the numbers. Automation can displace workers and steadily increase the pressure on those who remain. Left unchecked, the three digital forces can transform the employment relationship into a cold market transaction — an interesting logistical approach but one that can have long-term repercussions for both workers and companies.
This new vision of work is already taking shape in some companies. Amazon.com Inc. applies an intense data-driven approach to people management. As The New York Times reported in 2015, it hires only the best, pays them well, keeps them working hard, and regularly trims its workforce to remove those it deems underperformers. Uber Technologies Inc. employs a relatively small number of very good employees full-time and hires the majority of drivers through contracts that it adjusts to respond to last-minute changes in market demand. Uber is now piloting a fleet of driverless vehicles.
Towards a new model of industrial relations
When trying to understand the rapidity of digital innovation, it can be tempting to see native digital companies as a kind of managerial archetype to inspire.
Surely we can, and must, learn a lot from these companies. But it's better to think carefully before adopting every single Silicon Valley management technique. Most companies lack the resources to attract and pay the best in the business.
And many high-performing workers would not do well in a transaction-based work scheme, preferring instead to focus on security or a better work-life balance. Traditional companies, even in non-tech industries or less exotic locations, can attract great workers if they offer the right combination of salary, mission and working conditions.
Beyond simply finding employees, the question arises whether market-based employment contracts are the best form of social contract for a traditional company. These practices, which work well in some fast-growing companies, may prove less effective when growth slows or unexpected events occur.
Paying people only for work they do reduces opportunities to drive innovation and employee cohesion. And certainly such practices do not promote loyalty. Many Uber drivers also work for competitors; they are Uber drivers only until they find a better deal.
Amazon is among the most innovative companies in the industry but is also known for its high worker turnover. Loyalty helps companies get by when they can't afford sky-high wages; employees work hard and create innovation because they believe in the company and its leaders. And when tough times come, loyalty is what allows companies to keep the best people.
A heart is needed for the digital dimension
I firmly believe in digital transformation and I certainly don't want to discourage companies that intend to adopt management practices enhanced by the digital dimension. But when building a vision for the future of the company, think of digital forces as vitamins or drugs. The right dose, taken in the right way, can produce amazing results. But abuse, or use under the wrong conditions, can poison.
In short, digital transformation needs a heart. In an age of digital innovation, leaders in every industry must aim to transform every part of the business, from customer experience to business models to operations management. However, they must not forget that people are the real engines of a company.
Management's vision for the next five to ten years is not to see employees as contracted resources working like machines under constant supervision. It doesn't have to be a world where automation crushes workers — and managers — out of the system.
It must be a future where computers help employees collaborate seamlessly, make decisions scientifically, and improve management through automation. In the long run, digitally savvy companies that target the hearts and minds of workers will outperform those that treat people like machines.
Excerpts from MIT Sloan Management Review, Chromosome innovation. 20 visions from MIT to understand how technology rewrites the genetics of organizations, Italian edition, edited by Alberto Mattiello, Guerini/goWAre, in collaboration with Confindustria Piccola Industria. (Available in bookstores and online stores in paper and ebook format). Book €22,50, ebook €14,99.
