Today I got the chance of attending a breakfast seminar at the Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences in Stockholm. Carolina Dybeck Happe, COO of Microsoft, was there to have a discussion and Q&A about ”the AI race from the inside”, and while there were many interesting things said I want to highlight these two related points:
- AI isn’t created or used for it’s own sake, but for the value it creates downstream.
- Companies should focus on how they bring value to their customers, and AI can be a means towards that end.
The other thing that stood out to me was when it was mentioned she had gotten to fly a ”Gripen”, and said that when asked what the best day in her life was she would spontaneously answer that day – and then remind herself she needs to say it of course was when she gave birth.
No matter which of the above would classify as the best day in her life, I still think it says something remarkable about what we as humans value.
- Experiences
- Familial relations
When Carolina talked about creating value, and how that value was created downstream from them, I got thinking about how the companies being customer to Microsoft, then should create value to their customers, who might be a company, and so on and so forth. Eventually there’s usually a human individual that’s the customer, and I have to think that it is with that individual that the value is realized, and it is best done so through providing experiences and strengthening familial relations.
I’m sure there are many more things to this, and certainly lots of books and more clever things written about the topic. But I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that in the end, all this progress, this ”race to the bottom” as someone asked if this was, the purpose of it is to benefit humanity, and that which we have stewardship of.
But sometimes I believe we loose track of it.
Because at the end of our lives, I believe we will cherish those experiences and familial relations the most, and we would do well to remember it.
