More AI Requires More OI
This entry originally appeared on August 3oth, 2024 using the mirror.xyz platform and has been permanently stored onchain and signed via ArWeave.
We don’t have to go far to get bombarded with discussions about AI. Ethics, efficacy, products, research, use cases - it’s everywhere. Investing for the sake of investing and FOMO are evident in almost every corporate think-tank and startup I’ve worked with this year, and they’re all taking the Big Wall approach to protecting their ‘idea.’
Let me let you in on a little secret: There are no new ideas.
“Wait - don’t you run an Open Innovation workshop based on new ideas?”
Sure do - but it’s not the ideas themselves that change the world. It’s the ability to index, recall, and apply said ideas when there’s product-market fit. This is more about organization and timing than it is ideation….but more on that later.
What is Open Innovation?
Open Innovation is a broad term used in the Information Age (now) to promote a mindset that runs counter to the secrecy and silo mentality of traditional research labs. The term was originally referred to as “a paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as the firms look to advance.” Until recently, this discussion was only happening in tech advancement.
See Henry Chesbrough and Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.
Being that I love when new words are formed to make different impressions, I personally prefer this updated version, “A distributed innovation process based on purposively managed knowledge flows across organizational boundaries, using pecuniary and non-pecuniary mechanisms in line with the organization’s business model.” It’s not firm-centric, rather it also includes creative consumers and communities of user innovators.
What stands out about this updated version is by allowing open innovation to explore internal and external sources, it allows analysis at the inter-org, intra-org, extra-org, and at industrial, regional, and societal levels. The tool we’ve been working on starts to explore Open Innovation at the individual level (decision-makers, managers, and entrepreneurs on the human side and how decision-makers frame the choices at implementation.) After all, it still takes a human decision to make an idea work.
Companies such as Lego, GE, Phillips, Samsung, NASA, Apple, Google - all claim to use OI. They usually do it for a relatively short period as a ‘Program” associated with a project or team. If you have any examples of companies or organizations that built their structure around OI, please let us know.
Benefits of OI
- Improved Performance - Project Delivery
- Speed and Accuracy - Market Research
- Reduced Cost - R&D
- Customer Inclusion
- Digital Transformation
- Discovery of Emerging Models
- Internal / External Systems Synergy
- Interoperability / Composability / Persistence
Risks
- Leaks
- Loss of Competitive Advantage
- Increased Complexity
- Exposing Employee Acumen - Dunning-Kruger
- Patent/Trademark Exposure
While these risks are inherent, the proper system architecture can prevent some of the security issues. We hosted an OI workshop where none of the attendees knew the problem they were trying to solve…and never did. That’s part of the beauty of the diversity of minds that OI requires. Inclusion is a must. In traditional R&D, everything is shrouded in secrecy and reserved for the SME’s. I’m not making light of the risks at all - I’m simply stating that with the proper forethought and systems architecture, the security concerns can be addressed and engineered into the system(s).
Personally, I love the notion of Innovation Networks.
Ideas are social, by nature. They don’t consider human conditions like gender, race, preference, culture, politics, or autocracy. Ideas just are.
When put them in a network - they really come to life. We can assign provenance, discuss them, track their growth, incent, reward, and eventually develop. Because of the human interaction, they become exposed and ultimately investible.
Urgency
We can’t talk about innovation in any form without discussing control. The whole paradigm of closed innovation holds that successful innovation requires control. This concept stems from the early twentieth century when academic and government institutions were not involved in the commercial application of science. As a result, it was left up to corporations to take product development into their own hands. There wasn’t time to wait. This led to some massive breakthroughs, namely venture capital and a new category of mobile/skilled workers. It created a new market of knowledge.
This market of knowledge has been growing immensely.
Chris Dixon from a16z refers to this period as the read/write period of the internet. The research became available to read, and applications that allowed us to comment and frame thoughts on that research emerged. Our globally collective voice could now be heard. If secrets live in darkness, this was a massive flashlight.
We’re now moving into a new era. Some call it the Information Age or MisInformation Age. Whatever collective words we choose to describe it, there seems to be consensus around two pillars - regenerative (circular) processes and decentralized, open-source systems architecture. The underlying technology is now available in a way that wasn’t before. Through protocols and governance, we can assign provenance, provide recognition and incentives along the way, and put the proper consensus in place to do the ‘right’ thing. We can establish benefit and value beyond profit and return some of the high-value inputs back into the system. All of this, while creating, maintaining, and indexing the vital information required to continuously improve the idea.
Sounds too good to be true, right? Or maybe this very concept ☝🏼 came from a series of Open Innovation workshops across a diverse population over a longer period of time.
I wish I thought of that.
Parting Thought
AI will accelerate everything. That means it’s being measured as +Additive or xMultiplicative. Ideas are the seeds of innovation and I’m afraid we’re not being creative enough. The essence of our human design is our cognition. Self-awareness, spiritual curiosity, and philosophical musings among many other traits. We are ultra-social cooperators. Perhaps it’s time to put down some of the inherited industrialized tools and explore our next.
Let’s hear from Michael Tomasello in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. The Inspiration Journey
Special thanks to:
Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash