World War 3.0: Humans vs. Artificial Intelligence
World War 3.0: Humans vs. Artificial Intelligence
Today, artificial intelligence is a household name and sometimes even a household presence. (Hi, Alexa!).
While artificial intelligence’s acceptance in mainstream society is a new phenomenon, it is not a new concept. The modern field of artificial intelligence came into existence in 1956, but it took decades of work to make significant progress toward developing an artificial intelligence system and making it a technological reality.
With all these new artificial intelligence use cases comes the daunting question of whether machines will force humans into obsolescence. The jury is still out. Some experts vehemently deny that artificial intelligence will automate so many jobs that millions of people find themselves unemployed, while other experts see it as a pressing problem.
“The structure of the workforce is changing, but I don’t think artificial intelligence is essentially replacing jobs,” said Dr. Hossein Rahnama, founder and CEO of artificial intelligence concierge company Flybits and visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It allows us to really create a knowledge-based economy and leverage that to create better automation for a better form of life. It might be a little bit theoretical, but I think if you have to worry about artificial intelligence and robots replacing our jobs, it’s probably algorithms replacing white-collar jobs such as business analysts, hedge fund managers and lawyers.”
Co-founder and CTO of Nara Logics Dr. Nathan Wilson said the shift toward artificial intelligence-based systems will likely cause the economy to add jobs that facilitate the transition.
“Artificial intelligence will create more wealth than it destroys,” Wilson said, “but it will not be equitably distributed, especially at first. The changes will be subliminally felt and not overt. For example, a tax accountant won’t one day receive a pink slip and meet the robot that is now going to sit at her desk. Rather, the next time the tax accountant applies for a job, it will be a bit harder to find one.”
Wilson said he anticipates that artificial intelligence in the workplace will fragment long-standing workflows, creating many human jobs to integrate those workflows. Other experts are not as sure about where the new jobs will come from once artificial intelligence becomes ubiquitous.
Whether rosy or rocky, the future is coming quickly, and artificial intelligence will certainly be a part of it. As this technology develops, the world will see new startups, numerous business applications and consumer uses, as well as the displacement of certain jobs with the creation of entirely new ones.
Let’s embrace the future and replace the past. At My Office Apps, we are incorporating elements of artificial intelligence into our software; not to replace people, but to free them up so they can create more value for your business. If we can eliminate the drudge work for your employees, such asentering routine data into a spreadsheet in favor of spending more time talking with customers, it is a win-win situation for everyone. Call us to see how Kechie™ could solve your business process problems and provide demonstrable value. Or visit us at www.myofficeapps.com to schedule a demo today.
Uzialko, A. (2019, April 22). How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Business. Retrieved from https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/9402-artificial-intelligence-business-trends.html
About My Office Apps, Inc.
My Office Apps, Inc. (MOA) is a leader in business improvement software solutions to automate your organization. Building on three decades of software design and development, MOA delivers Kechie™, a transformative business tool. Kechie is a fully integrated Enterprise Resource Planning Software as a Service (SaaS) platform with a simplified user experience and the latest in cloud technology. It is quick and easy to implement without the expensive price tag. Sold in separate packages – inventory and warehouse management (CRM, Sales, Procurement, Logistics included), manufacturing, finance – or a fully configured ERP system to include all of these individual tools. Kechie is easily configured to the scalable needs of your growing business. For more information on managing your business processes more efficiently and effectively, visit www.myofficeapps.com.
###
Still Holding the Hands of Your Sales Team?
Still Holding the Hands of Your Sales Team?
Let Kechie Provide You with an A.I. Sales Coach
Don’t you wish you could watch over every single salesperson on every single sales call and give them tips on how to sell more? The Kechie™ ERP software provides an equivalent capability called Upsales, using artificial intelligence-like techniques to provide real-time tips to a salesperson when they are in discussion with a prospect.
The Upsales feature provides coaching to make it easier for salespeople to sell add-on products when talking to their customers. Oftentimes, the most profitable products may not be products a customer sets out to purchase, but rather a secondary product to accompany the purchase. For example, if a computer salesperson is talking to a customer about purchasing a laptop computer, he/she might suggest they also include a spare battery and a laptop case with the order and increase the overall revenue and margin from the sale.
First, the Kechie Inventory module allows management, or product manager, to program Upsales links between products that pair naturally together. These links are the basis for the suggestions of additional items to suggest when selling. Secondly, a new icon appears in the Sales Order Entry module when a salesperson is entering the order for the first item. This icon reminds the salesperson can suggest additional products to the customer. When clicked, a popup screen appears with additional accessories or add-ons to the sales order. If the customer agrees, the salesperson can make this addition with a single click.
Smart algorithms and A.I. technology are examples of features within the Kechie ERP system to enhance efficiency and profitability for companies. Our goal is to provide the best solutions for small and medium-sized businesses using the latest techniques in order to contribute to the success of our customers. For more information, you can visit www.myofficeapps.com, or better yet, call us at (949) 486-1947 and ask us to schedule a demo so we can show how we can help solve your business issues you face, both today and tomorrow.
###
Improve business efficiency with Artificial Intelligence
Are Your Employees Spending Too Much Time on the Hamster Wheel?
In previous blogs, we described how Artificial Intelligence techniques (AI) in an ERP system can help improve efficiency and accuracy in your operations. It can also free up employee resources with extra time for creative activities to add value for your business. In this blog, we will describe one feature in our Kechie™ ERP system that uses AI techniques to automatically generate a whole series of new part numbers.
In any business, a critical item used in tracking almost every transaction is the Part Number or SKU (Stock Keeping Unit). Part numbers are used in sales orders, purchase orders, manufacturing, inventory tracking, invoicing and everywhere in between. The use of part numbers creates differentiation between multiple items for ordering, picking and packing the exact item requested by the customer. Many companies have thousands (or millions) of part numbers in their system. Managing this giant mass of data can become impossible without strong processing software to assist along the way.
New part number creation is one activity that can be quite time consuming for your staff, particularly when a large number of new part numbers need to be added at the same time. For the apparel industry, this can be a daunting task. For example, a buyer wants to add a new style shirt to the inventory. The shirt is available in long-sleeved and short-sleeved, classic and slim fit, sizes include extra small, small, medium, large, extra-large, and available in the sixteen colors. That’s 320 new sku’s to be added to the system. One-by-one, an employee sits in front of a screen and adds new parts numbers – perhaps a multiple day project. Is there a better use of this resource?
Here’s where a built-in intelligence can save the day. Kechie delivers a function that can automatically create part numbers and add them to the system. An employee can now focus on descriptions and selling features for a quick-to-market process rather than being bogged down with keystrokes. The artificial intelligence features in Kechie not only help set up new products – but can help your sales staff to up-sell features and products to maximize profitability. More will be revealed on this feature in coming blogs.
My Office Apps, Inc., a business process improvement company, is committed to providing continued improvements and incorporating various advanced AI techniques in our Kechie ERP software. Our goal is to provide the best processing solutions for small and medium sized businesses in order to contribute to the success of our customers. In the coming weeks, we will post additional articles that describe some of the specific AI features present in the Kechie ERP software and also provide a road map for other features that we expect to implement in the future. Our focus is not to just provide AI for AI’s sake, but rather to implement practical AI functions that can make a real difference in your business. For more information, you can visit www.myofficeapps.com or better yet, call us at (949) 486-1947 and ask us to schedule a demo so you can view these features for yourself.
###
WFH: Chapter 2 - The Benefits Outweigh the Risks
Working from Home Series
Chapter Two: The Benefits Outweigh the Risks
We know that many of you are working hard to adapt to the current coronavirus situation. Some companies, particularly those in health, medical supplies, or food distribution business, may be faced with a very rapid increase in demand. You are likely struggling through the logistics on how to handle it. A great many companies are shifting to a Work-From-Home (WFH) mode for their employees. They are learning and improvising new techniques to stay as productive as possible, even when not all together in the same office.
This current crisis will eventually pass. Solutions in the forms of treatment protocols and vaccines will be developed to defeat the virus. But when it is all over, companies will not just revert back to doing business the same way they did before. Businesses will want to incorporate many of the things they learned during the crisis to be more productive, efficient, and flexible than before. The benefits that are expected to come out of this pandemic will change the way we live and play for the better.
Benefits to Society
When millions of commuters no longer commute, traffic jams will smooth out. The climate may improve with fewer emissions of greenhouse gasses. Additionally, for those areas which are experiencing high housing prices, work from home will allow workers to live farther away from the main office. Suburban areas tend to have lower housing costs. Our future will see a reverse shift of populations in crowded cities.
Benefits to Employers
Those people who succeed in business do so because they always think several steps ahead. Strong companies will trudge through the pandemic and florish. Flexibility sets your company up for success Employers who were previously reluctant to allow work from home may also observe the productivity benefits and no longer object to it. With less space required for corporate offices, smart employers will save money by downsizing square footage while receiving equal or greater productivity.
Benefits for Employees
Simply by eliminating the commute to and from the office each day, workers will have more time available. Many will find that they achieve even higher productivity working from home because there are fewer interruptions or time-wasting meetings. The usage of video teleconferencing software such as Cisco Webex, Zoom, or GoToMeeting is exploding and many users are downloading this software and learning to use it for the first time. The use of other tools such as team collaboration software like Microsoft Teams and Slack is increasing as well.
The key to differentiating between a workplace fad and an economic strategy lies in the hands of the businesses. If corporate leaders throughout the world believe remote work is beneficial to the sustainability of their brand, then they’ll invest in the development of it as a resource. In other words, if there is value in telecommuting for organizations, there is value for the world.
The Kechie™ ERP solution was designed to facilitate remote work. Based in the cloud, it can be accessed from anywhere that has an internet connection via desktop, mobile devices including smartphones and tablet computers. It is simple and intuitive to use and allows large teams to share important business data through the data bases in the system. Relevant data from each of the modules is automatically shared so that people working in other departments can use it, if needed. No more walking over to the next aisle to ask a fellow employee what is happening. Everything is recorded in the system.
As a business process improvement company, My Office Apps Inc. remains committed to delivering beneficial software tools to help businesses today and tomorrow. For more information, you can visit www.myofficeapps.com or better yet, call us at (949) 486-1947 and ask us to schedule a demo. Let us show you how we can solve your business challenges during this pandemic and moving forward.
5 Ways AI is Changing our World for the Better
5 Ways AI is Changing our World for the Better
Man has long feared the rise of the machine – his own creation becoming smarter and more intelligent than he. But while artificial intelligence and machine learning are rapidly changing our world and powering the Fourth Industrial Revolution, humanity does not need to be afraid.
Creating New Jobs
“Artificial intelligence will change the workforce,” affirms Carolyn Frantz, Microsoft’s Corporate Secretary. The bleak view of AI as a job killer is but one side of the coin: while 75 million jobs may disappear, as many as 133 million more engaging, less repetitive new roles are expected to be created. AI “is an opportunity for workers to focus on the parts of their jobs that may also be the most satisfying to them,” says Frantz.
Bridging Language Divides
Whether it’s teaching new languages in a personalized way or translating speech and text in real-time, AI-powered language tools from Duo lingo to Skype are bridging social and cultural divides in our workplaces, classrooms and everyday lives. Digital translation services are not “perfect,” admits Microsoft education leader Mark Sparvell, but “they offer a means of understanding” that might not otherwise be possible.
Transforming Government
Less paperwork, quicker responses, a more efficient bureaucracy – AI has the power to drastically change public administration, but are governments ready? This tech comes with both risks and opportunities that need to be understood and evaluated. Academic Kevin Desouza believes gamification and role-playing could be the key to public servants analyzing complex cases, coming up with better solutions, and truly understanding the future of autonomous systems.
Delivering Health Care
AI has the potential to make health care “much more accessible and more affordable,” insists Paul Bates, director of NHS services at Babylon Health. Babylon, an app that offers symptom checking and fast access to physicians if needed, is providing advice to more than one million residents in central London through an AI-powered chatbot. Patients can get an accurate, safe, and convenient answer in seconds – and save health care providers’ money too.
Creating Art
Computational creativity is drastically changing the nature of art. Software, more than a tool, is becoming a creative collaborator, merging computer scientist with artist. As Austrian artist Sonja Bäumel assures, “The exhibition space becomes a lab; art becomes an expression of science, and the artist is the researcher.”
Rey, M., (2019, June 25). 5 Ways AI is Changing Our World for the Better. Retrieved from https://www.salzburgglobal.org/news/latest-news/article/5-ways-ai-is-changing-our-world-for-the-better.html
About My Office Apps, Inc.
My Office Apps, Inc. (MOA) is a leader in business improvement software solutions to automate your organization. Building on three decades of software design and development, MOA delivers Kechie™, a transformative business tool. Kechie is a fully integrated Enterprise Resource Planning Software as a Service (SaaS) platform with a simplified user experience and the latest in cloud technology. It is quick and easy to implement without the expensive price tag. Sold in separate packages – inventory and warehouse management (CRM, Sales, Procurement, Logistics included), manufacturing, finance – or a fully configured ERP system to include all of these individual tools. Kechie is easily configured to the scalable needs of your growing business. For more information on managing your business processes more efficiently and effectively, visit www.kechie.com or www.myofficeapps.com.
###