AI and the Obvious: Hire Us and Pay Us to Tell You Not to Worry

December 26, 2023

This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.

I read “Accenture Chief Says Most Companies Not Ready for AI Rollout.” The paywalled write up is an opinion from one of Captain Obvious’ closest advisors. The CEO of Accenture (a general purpose business expertise outfit) reveals some gems about artificial intelligence. Here are three which caught my attention.

#1 — “Sweet said executives were being “prudent” in rolling out the technology, amid concerns over how to protect proprietary information and customer data and questions about the accuracy of outputs from generative AI models.”

The secret to AI consulting success: Cost, fear of failure, and uncertainty or CFU. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough.

Arnold comment: Yes, caution is good because selling caution consulting generates juicy revenues. Implementing something that crashes and burns is a generally bad idea.

#2 — “Sweet said this corporate prudence should assuage fears that the development of AI is running ahead of human abilities to control it…”

Arnold comment: The threat, in my opinion, comes from a handful of large technology outfits and from the legions of smaller firms working overtime to apply AI to anything that strikes the fancy of the entrepreneurs. These outfits think about sizzle first, consequences maybe later. Much later.

# 3 — ““There are no clients saying to me that they want to spend less on tech,” she said. “Most CEOs today would spend more if they could. The macro is a serious challenge. There are not a lot of green shoots around the world. CEOs are not saying 2024 is going to look great. And so that’s going to continue to be a drag on the pace of spending.”

Arnold comment: Great opportunity to sell studies, advice, and recommendations when customers are “not saying 2024 is going to look great.” Hey, what’s “not going to look great” mean?

The obvious is — obvious.

Stephen E Arnold, December 26, 2023

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under AI, Business strategy, Consulting, News

Comments

Comments are closed.

Search the site
Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive

Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.