In the current hype phase surrounding all things Artificial Intelligence (AI) it is a good time to consider not only what we are automating, but how and why we are doing it. Simply engaging in automation of human tasks, saying that all you need to do is clean your data is not enough.

If we are in a mood to reimagine business for the better, then let's give this more thought, before implementing AI. This blog post focuses on Fierce Reduction: a quest to simplify business, before you automate it.

Less is More 

Pablo Picasso’s The Bull is a series of eleven lithographs created in 1945¹. It depicts the bull at various stages of abstraction, starting with a realistic depiction and ending with nothing but a few lines. This review demonstrates art as seeing basic patterns amongst the 'noise'; seeing basic forms amongst the complex. In business, Fierce Reduction means the same: seeing basic forms among the complex.

In 2021, American scientist Leidy Klotz wrote a book called Subtract². He called this topic 'The Untapped Science of Less'. In this work, the author has made an extensive study of using less to the change the system: scaling subtraction. To quote:

"Essence is the soul of complexity, its irreducible building blocks. All the complexity brought by biological evolution, for example, builds from the genetic code within DNA, which is represented by just four letters, combined into patterns of three letters each. Genetic code is essence."

Furthermore, Klotz goes on to talk about working memory: the cognitive system that temporarily holds the information we have available for processing - meaning, the trade off between the level of detail required to complete a task and our ability to avoid what others may call 'cognitive overload'.

In the context of AI-powered digital innovation, a key question becomes: how much detail could be offloaded to an AI Agent as a Copilot to enable a task to be completed by a human in a faster and maybe, more accurate, and an even less stressful way?

Now, if we look at the state of software today, we see the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model delivering a continuous stream of more features, with the aim of maximising our commitment to high user adoption and renewals to monthly or annual subscriptions.

We also have an information technology industry that, twenty years ago, made the shift to cloud computing and pay-as-you-go SaaS. This was countering the complexity and cost of the-then client/server on-premise hardware and clunky perpetual software licences.

Where are we now, twenty years later with SaaS? The answer is deep in a quagmire of complex systems. This is where the quest to add features by the SaaS publishers was bloated further by IT services firms, who being paid for billable people hours, have been motivated to introduce more complexity in order to maximise these hours.

The time has come to subtract, not add to current state business processes and their corresponding information technology systems. Less is more. Before embracing AI in a future state organisation, it is time to apply Fierce Reduction.

Deep Work

If we want to subtract from everyday business processes and tasks, we also need to deal with what has been described as Deep Work³ by Cal Newport in his book of the same title. The author here defines Deep Work as:

"Professsional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate."

Similarly, and inspired by an earlier work by thought leader Nicholas G. Carr⁴, Newport, goes on to define the opposite of Deep Work as Shallow Work:

"Noncognitively-demanding, logistical style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate."

Of course, these books referenced here were written before AI dominated the headlines. We could now say that, as a general rule with current state AI technology, it has a role as Copilot in the pursuit of of Deep Work, but evolve into a Coworker in replacing human labour in performing Shallow Work.

Under Construction.

References

1. Scott, D. (2019). The Bull by Pablo Picasso – A Lesson in Abstraction. Draw Paint Academy. https://drawpaintacademy.com/the-bull/
2. Klotz, L. (2021). Subtract. The untapped Science of Less. New York: Flatiron Books. https://leidyklotz.com/media/
3. Newport, C. (2016). Deep Work. New York: Grand Central Publishing. https://calnewport.com/deep-work-rules-for-focused-success-in-a-distracted-world/
4. Carr, N.G.(2010). The Shallows. London: Atlantic Books.
   https://www.nicholascarr.com