Irving Wladawsky-Berger
A collection of observations, news and resources on the changing nature of innovation, technology, leadership, and other subjects.
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Category: Society and Culture
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The September 16, 2023 issue of The Economist included a special focus on “How AI Can Revolutionize Science” with three articles on the topic. “Debate about artificial intelligence (AI) tends to focus on its potential dangers: algorithmic bias and discrimination, the mass destruction of jobs and even, some say, the extinction of humanity,” noted the issue’s…
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Artificial intelligence first came to light in the mid-1950s as a promising new academic discipline that aimed to develop intelligent machines capable of handling human-like tasks like natural language and playing chess. AI became one of the most exciting areas in computer sciences in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, but after years of unfulfilled promises…
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“Even in a world with AI superintelligence, one thing will be true: we will always have the responsibility to make tough decisions,” wrote Bharat Chandar, — a postdoctoral researcher at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, — in “AI can’t make your toughest decisions.” “Nearly all consequential choices in life depend on a mix of two…
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The July 26 issue of The Economist included a special focus on “The Economics of Superintelligence” with three articles on the subject. “For most of history the safest prediction has been that things will continue much as they are,” said the lead article. “But sometimes the future is unrecognisable. The tech bosses of Silicon Valley say humanity…
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A report on the 2025 State of Tech Talent was recently published by Linux Foundation Research. “Our results reveal significant shifts in the technical workforce, particularly driven by AI adoption and a shortage of skilled professionals,” wrote authors Adrienn Lawson and Marco Aurelio Gerosa in the report’s Executive Summary. “Contrary to widespread concerns about AI-driven…
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Given that technologies have been automating human work over the past couple of centuries, — why hasn’t automation already wiped out a majority of jobs? Why are there still so many jobs left? The answer isn’t very complicated, although frequently overlooked, explained MIT economist David Autor in a 2015 article “Why Are There Still So…
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I retired from my long, 37-year career at IBM in June of 2007. At the time, I had already become affiliated with MIT’s Engineering Systems Division, and was looking forward to the graduate seminar that I’d be teaching that fall at MIT on Technology-based Business Transformation. “This course covers how to leverage major technology advances…
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About three years ago I started following and writing about Generative AI (GenAI), Large Language Models (LLMs), chatbots, and related topics. Then a few months ago I started hearing about agentic AI, and since then I’ve been trying to better understand what agentic AI is all about. I asked Babson College professor Tom Davenport, a prolific…
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Last month I moderated a panel on “The Impact AI on Jobs and Skills” at the annual 2025 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium. “As AI transforms industry after industry, its impact on the labor force is becoming a critical focus for business, educators, and policy makers,” read the panel’s blurb. “What will be the impact of…
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What is Agentic AI? There are multiple answers to this question, not surprisingly since we’re still in the early stages of this complex technology. Wikipedia emphasizes the autonomous nature of agentic AI in its definition: Agentic AI is “a class of artificial intelligence that focuses on autonomous systems that can make decisions and perform tasks…