The Theatre of Transformation

This is part III of a IV part series on the state of AI. If you haven't already, please read part I.The Theatre of Transformation0:00/655.6081×In any large organisation that has been talking about artificial intelligence for the last three years, there is a meeting that takes place once a quarter. It has a different name each time. Two years ago it was the digital transformation review. This year it is the AI transformation update. The deck is new. The consultants are slightly more expensive. The vocabulary has acquired some technical inflections it did not have a decade ago—the current buzz is "headless AI", a phrase uttered without any sense of irony. A slide is shown on which the words "human-centred" appear in serif type alongside the words "data-driven" in sans-serif, separated by a suitable graphic. The steering committee nods. The workstream leads report green. The chief transformation officer assures the chief executive that the programme is "on track". What none of those…