Question...!

 

"I have a big question. 

Which is, who runs the world?

...These technology titans are not just men worth 50 or 100 billion dollars or more. 

They are increasingly the most powerful people on the planet 

with influence over our futures. 

And we need to know, 

are they going to act accountably 

as they release new and powerful artificial intelligence? 

What are they going to do with this unprecedented amount of data 

that they are collecting on us and our environment? 

And the one that I think should concern us all right now the most: 

Will they persist with these advertising models 

driving so much revenues that are turning citizens into products 

and driving hate and misinformation 

and ripping apart our society?

...Today, the United States has become the principal exporter of tools 

that destroy democracy. 

The technology leaders who create and control these tools, 

are they OK with that?

Or are they going to do something about it?

We need to know..."

Party...?

On the occasion of 28th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP 28) that is in progress [2 more days to go] at United Arab Emirates (UAE), a tribute to the creative imagination of the master creator himself playing 'The Great Dictator...!'

If you are really curious about the subject matter, are interested in getting a closer look at the truth and have the courage to stand the satire, you can watch the short film "La Fête est Finie" (The Party is Over) by Mark Donne to mark the historic Paris Climate change conference or COP21, 7 years ago.

Party will never be over... unless we end it!

Way to go...

Warnings…?

 

"On the 26th of January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of this political democracy so laboriously built up by this Assembly."

Theses are the excerpts from the speech to the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949, for the full transcript of this speech check out – ‘Why BR Ambedkar’s three warnings in his last speech to the Constituent Assembly resonate even today’

The concerns he has expressed are more relevant today than ever…

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Previously published on Be[a]Cause on 26 Jan 2022.

Ingenuity...!

Worried about water-scarcity?

World will become desert soon?
Water will cause the Third World War?

Concerned about such challenges, watch this!

What Indian people engineered centuries ago to harvest water in the Golden Deserts of India will give you insights from the ancient Indian Wisdom.

Can it help us build a water-secure future?

Re[as]sume...!

"Back in 1482, a young man heard that the region of Milan was looking for an engineer, so he did what job applicants do. He wrote down his skills and his objectives and how they related to the role in what is thought to be the first resume ever created. That young man was Leonardo da Vinci – the guy that painted the Mona Lisa. Yet if you took a look at his resume, you would never guess that he was capable of achieving any of those things..."

"As if, if we spend 20 more minutes on the resume, it'll somehow be perfect. It will become the ideal resume. As if the ideal resume exists. It doesn't, it's very subjective..."

"If this is all news to you and you're looking for a job, then you’re playing the job search game, and you don’t know the rules. Hardly anyone does. And the problem there is that AI still has a long way to go, and machine learning is nowhere near to making predictions on candidates’ success..."

"A resume doesn't do you justice if you have a non-traditional path. And a non-traditional path is now the norm..."

"Subsequently, it's all about building trust and a culture of belonging. If you ask any CEO about their culture, they'll say it's unique. But to apply to be a part of it is exactly the same as their competitors, which not only limits their options, they end up competing for the same type of talent which results in workplaces that lack diversity..."

"...And once employers realize this, then we'll begin creating workplaces that feel welcoming to candidates even before they join. Plus, it will give us enough time to rethink cover letters, because those are really terrible."

Reaching out...!

 

"For every single suicide death, there are 25 to 30 times the number of attempts."

"Our recent research has even shown us that less than half of people who attempt suicide will actually reach out for help, prior, meaning that if we are to reach them, we need to meet them where they are."

"For example, in one study, the investigators went up to these individuals who had recently attempted suicide and asked to see their anonymized search history. And in fact, these individuals had searched up keywords pertaining to suicide means and methodology as well as surrounding hopelessness and loneliness."

Today is twentieth World Suicide Prevention Day established by International Association for Suicide Prevention in conjunction with the World Health Organization (WHO). According to the global health body, it is estimated that there are currently more than 7,00,000 (approx,.0.01% of world population) suicides per year worldwide. Do we need to wait and watch this seemingly insignificant percentage rising day by day? Or do we need to Reach Out...? 

Lives of people, right from known celebrities like Guru Dutta to Nitin Desai and hundreds of thousands of unknown commoners, could have been saved only if someone had decided to reach out to them in their dark times when they took that decision and executed it, hopelessly and painfully!

If we have AI at our disposal that can 'read your mind', why not put it to the best use of saving precious human lives rather than just checking on their life-style habits to market consumables. There are things no human wants to discuss or disclose with another living soul and AI supposedly being a non-living and emotionless thing, people can find counsel and solace by sharing any disturbing thing with it without the fear of being judged.

If the technology and its tiniest handheld tool is making humans more and more isolated, the same thing must be used to pull them out of that isolation. This ultimately can help the helplines to reach out to them and counsel them in those difficult desperate moments of 25 to 30 attempts; isn't it...?

Reach out... It's really a long way to go!

Some of the Suicide Helplines in India:

iCall

Life Line Foundation

AASRA

Health Collective

SPHII

Helplines List

Expensive...?

"They’re responsible for 70 percent of the stock of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, for using up 60 percent of the world's carbon budget."

Clarification: This partly depends on the definition of "developed" and "developing," but the Centre for Global Development reports that developed countries are responsible for 79 percent of global emissions produced between 1850 and 2011: see here.

The estimate that rich countries are using up 60 percent of the global carbon budget is based on analyses showing that the world has used up roughly 85 percent of the global carbon budget, the total amount of carbon emissions that the world can emit while still staying below 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming (see the most recent Global Carbon Budget report here and a Carbon Brief analysis here).

Given that developed countries are responsible for 79 percent of the roughly 85 percent of the global carbon budget already used, this means that they have used up roughly 67 percent of the global carbon budget.

"The problem is that all of the aid in the world will not fund one-twelfth of the green transformation in developing countries."

Clarification: This one-twelfth estimate comes from two numbers: The total amount of foreign aid, specifically official development assistance (ODA), in 2022 was 204 billion dollars, and according to a 2022 report by the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance, emerging markets and developing countries will need to spend 2.4 trillion dollars per year by 2030 to finance a green transformation. (204 billion dollars is about one-twelfth of 2.4 trillion dollars.) See here and here.

AI...?

 

"Nevertheless, I believe that there's so much we need to do and can do to make AI sustainable and humanistic. We need to make AI smaller, to democratize it. And we need to make AI safer by teaching human norms and values..."

Same is true for the Next Generation... If we fail to teach human norms and values to our kids, we will end up in a situation where AI-dependent generation will lookup everything on Chat GPT which could be intelligent but never Humane as it would be the sophisticated version of Machine Learning and not cognizance of Collective Wisdom - the privilege of mankind. 

This is neither criticism nor skepticism but a warning alarm of what future holds for us if we do not realize its implications at a macro level. 

Let us Be Aware...!

Relation...!

And in that prophecy, she told me that it tells of a day that will come where an ounce of water costs more than an ounce of gold. When she told me that prophecy, I sat for a moment, and I thought about all of the injustices we see in our world today, the water crises we see in our world today, and I said, "Nokomis, Grandmother, I feel like we are already in that time of prophecy." And she looked back at me directly, and she said, "So what are you going to do about it?"

You see, I imagine a world where we value water as a living relation, where we work to restore our connection to water. As women, we are water carriers. We nurture water in our wombs for nine months. It's the first medicine that each of us as human beings is exposed to. See, we are all born as human beings with a natal connection to water, but somewhere along the way, we lost that connection, and we have to work to restore it. Because I imagine a world in which water is healthy and ecosystems are thriving. I imagine a world where each of us takes up our right of responsibility as water citizens and protects water.

But most of all, if you do anything, I ask that you make a promise to yourself, that each day, you will ask, "What have I done for the water today?" If we are able to fulfill that promise, I believe we can create a bold and brilliant world where future generations are able to form the same relationship to water that we have been privileged to have, where all communities of human and nonhuman relations have water to live, because water is life.

Culture...!

An American long-term investor, philanthropist, business tycoon, and the chairman & CEO of Berkshire Hathaway - Warren E. Buffett is considered one of the most successful investors in the world and has a net worth of over 100 billion dollars.

Thanks to: Goldman Sachs / @goldmansachs for making available this video of his advice to new and aspiring entrepreneurs that has a unique and quintessential idea for all the New-age Leaders, in general and for the business leaders, in particular...

"...but you have to do it through other people. 

And you won't be able to do it through people

Who themselves do not feel they are being fairly treated

That their views aren't appropriately considered.

So, you really do have to learn to

Multiply yourself through other people..."

Creating Shared Values should not be confined to Strategic CSR, it could (and must) be transcended throughout the organization for making optimum use of the resources and when it happens, succession planning will occur as a culture and not strategy...

Way to go...!

Anukul...?

I wanted to share this since long. The sci-fi genre is not about the technology or its wonders but rather about its applications and implications. That makes this best sci-fi film India has ever produced. And guess what, this story was written by the legendary film-maker Satyajit Ray which easily makes it 40-45 years old, even with a random guestimate. It not only proves the vision of the great filmmaker but also his deep concern and care about the humanity, particularly for the way, direction and pace with which the ‘development’ is moving forward lately.

The time to share ‘Anukul’ couldn’t have been better as the occasion is aptly symbolic when Geoffrey Hinton – Godfather of artificial intelligence (AI) has decided to step-down for realizing the growing dangers from developments in the AI (Artificial Intelligence) field saying that... "Right now, they're not more intelligent than us, as far as I can tell. But I think they soon may be."

Now there are three things humans, with all their collective wisdom, should deep dive in –

1. Do we really need to create anything that we may not be able to control?

2. Are we ready to trade-out human values and common good for convenience?

3. If AI learnt to validate vices in the name of conscience, where would this take us?

In this regard, I would like to reiterate my most favorite questions that should be answered before indulging into any and all types of advancements and developments projected as conveniences, facilities and services for ease-of-living –

1. Is it worth it?

2. At the cost of what?

If you are fan of ‘sustainability’, think over it! However, if you prefer ‘convenience’ over anything else, please feel free to make it ‘Anukul’!

Way to go...

Old habits...

In the ABCD of life, both Birth and Death are inevitable and beyond our control, but there are 'Attitude' and 'Choice' before and between which can make or break us. Although Attitude is overrated (90%, you know!) and Choice is a freewill if not luxury, what matters most is the Habit and when it is 'Old' it dies hard, they say!

 

Leadership expert Elizabeth Lyle offers a new approach to breaking the rules (and old habits!) sharing creative ways how middle managers can climb the corporate ladder while by challenging the way things have always been done.

 

"I believe there is a window of time in the formative middle-manager years when we can lay the groundwork for that kind of leadership, but we're missing it. Why? Because our future leaders are learning from senior role models who just aren't ready to role model yet, much less change the systems that made them so successful..."

 

"Organizations are evolving rapidly, and they're counting on their future leaders to lead with more speed, flexibility, trust and cooperation than they do today..."

 

"We need middle managers and senior leaders to work together to define a new way of leading and develop each other to rise to the occasion..."

"The command-and-control behavior that she was once rewarded for just isn't going to work in a faster-moving, flatter, more digitally interconnected organization. What got her here won't get her there..."

 

"But what we find is that they're often doing the best job at not rocking the boat and challenging the system because they're trying to impress and make life easier on the senior leaders who will promote them..."

 

"...our role models are in behavior boot camp right now, and our work environments are undergoing unprecedented disruption. We are systematically changing just about everything about how organizations work, but by and large, still measuring and rewarding behavior based on old metrics, because changing those systems takes time..."

 

"Either he inherits an organization that is failing because of stubbornly old-fashioned leadership, or he himself fails to build the capabilities to lead one that transformed while he was playing it safe..."

 

"I work with another senior client who summed up this dilemma beautifully when we were talking about why he and his peers haven't empowered the folks below them with more decision rights. He said, "We haven't done it because we just don't trust that they're going to make the right decisions. But then again, how could they? We've just never given them decisions to practice with."

 

"That is seriously hard mentorship to provide, and even the best leaders need help doing it, which is why we need more coaches coaching more leaders, more in real time versus any one leader behind closed doors..."

"Around 20 years ago, Warren Buffet gave a school lecture in which he said, "The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they're too heavy to be broken..."

CEO...?

"It took us a while to learn that you can't actually make a company more digital by appointing a chief digital officer, or that a chief diversity officer could not single-handedly make a company's culture more inclusive. So we already know that we cannot just appoint a chief stakeholder officer if we really want to serve all stakeholders. Instead, we need to reset. If we really want to serve stakeholder needs, we need to get everyone involved. There are no quick fixes..."

There never were...!

"We've been looking for people who look different, but boards still do the same thing. We don't need tokens. We need people who truly understand the experience and represent the diversity of our stakeholders."

The Living Beings with Brains as well as Hearts...!

"Imagine a world where corporate governance was very different than today:

Community leaders sitting on the boards of their local bank;

Moral philosophers advising social media companies;

Environmental activists as directors of global energy companies."

Can I ask for more...?

"If customers are stakeholders, then they should not be harmed by the goods, services and products we produce. It's that simple."

Really...?

"For stakeholder capitalism to really work, we all need to see ourselves as chief executive officers. If we really want change, we have to be willing to bear the backlash. We're not always going to get it right, and that's OK. Real, substantive change takes time. The right answer keeps changing. But we have to try to do better."

Indeed...!

Way to go...