Abstract
Modern technologies have presented the world with a plethora of new opportunities, from the mundane (reduced input rigor) through to new outcomes that eluded our collective wisdom and knowledge. These changes have confronted organizations with new risk types, spanning the strategic through to operational, resources through to circularity and sustainability. One poignant impact being seen today is the morphing between virtual and physical inputs (tech tools and humans), resulting in a demand for organizations to reinvigorate their business models in a manner that encompasses both types of inputs seamlessly. However, attendant issues with skills, job types, and tasks have come around full circle. One the one end, there is the fear of technology automating humans out of a job altogether (alongside the promise of enhancing individuals to pursue new skills in a cognitive world), while on the other end there are significant socio-economic concerns surrounding job losses and consequential impacts on the consumption-production continuum.
TopNon-Biological Interventions
First, let’s address near-term trends, by considering algorithms. They are seen as instructions for solving a problem, and much like math. Computers and smartphones are fundamentally algorithms, which rule our daily lives – with social media, mobile apps, GPS systems, trackers, wearables, computers, financial transactions, travel et al.
We cannot do without them today. Interestingly the most underrated component with algorithms is the misunderstanding that algorithms earlier had functional specificities with which they undertook tasks efficiently. Today algorithms are on a self-learning mode, thereby giving us a window into a more interesting future where machine to machine interactions may soon supersede human to machine transfer of knowledge. At this point it is perhaps crucial to acknowledge one example.
Earlier in January 2017, Google Translate developed its own intermediate language so as to enhance its ability to provide translation services.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Global Position System (GPS): An utility that provides users with positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services. This system consists of three segments: the space segment, the control segment, and the user segment.
Virtual Health Tracker: A wearable fitness technology like activity trackers, heart rate monitors, and global positioning system (GPS) watches. Wrist activity trackers monitor the number of steps you take, activity levels and sleep quality with an accelerometer, which is an instrument that measures movement. Some kinds also measure heart rate using lights on the bottom of the tracker to peer through your skin and monitor the flow of blood. Other models have a built in GPS to track distance, speed, and elevation. You can then synch all this information up with fitness apps on your smartphone, tablet or computer.
Intelligent Algorithms: A large amount of intelligent techniques, including neural networks, fuzzy logics, genetic algorithms, etc., have been broadly applied to various fields in reality, such as chemical process, robotics, mechanical engineering, etc. In the biological system, they are practical alternative techniques for tackling and solving a variety of challenging engineering problems.
IT Work-Force Management: An institutional process that maximizes performance levels and competency for an organization in IT sector. The process includes all the activities needed to maintain a productive workforce.
Risk Management: It refers to the set of processes through which a company identifies, analyzes, quantifies, eliminates, and monitors the risks associated with a given production process.
E-Commerce: The sale of goods and services marketed through online platforms. Over the years it is a mode that has increasingly taken hold; e-commerce allows the vendor to significantly reduce the prices of the final product and the players on the market are constantly increasing, from the giants Amazon and eBay to the specialized online store.
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI): The study of the interaction between people (users) and computers for the design and development of interactive systems that are usable, reliable, and that support and facilitate human activities.