Then, what’s the differentiating factor? It’s a bit counterintuitive because we are moving in the direction of robots, cyborgs, and avatars. Aside the resource access, arguably the most powerful differentiators to many companies today are still the people—the human capital. If my team is competing with a team in Japan, for example, we might have access to the same technologies and tools but what will likely make the difference when competing to win is the marketplace. It is the capability of our teams; their creativity, drive, motivation and culture as well as how we take and perceive risks. It’s an interesting dynamic. We are living in an accelerated world that is primed toward singularity. While we are becoming oversaturated with knowledge and information, the question remains how to best use such information and deploy the knowledge for the betterment of all? At least, the human factor is still the key business differentiator today although it is rapidly being challenged by the progress of deep learning neural networks and generative AI reasoning capabilities.
the fields such as drug discovery or diagnostic results interpretation, etc. However, these are also frightening capabilities in the cases of potential uncontrolled AI takeover or their ability to create and manage their own algorithms and software, therefore becoming autonomous self-managed entities.
THE RISE OF KNOWLEDGE COMMODITIZATION
In a nutshell, digital trends—in particular, AI— are catalysts for a number of our activities and actions. Our ability to access and process enormous amounts of data drives an interesting trend where knowledge is becoming more and more of a commodity. In other words, there are no knowledge-based secrets. We all have access to the same sources and could find similar answers. That is accelerated by the overall generative AI capabilities which is fueling a social trend that I call “knowledge commoditization.” In terms of innovations, very quickly different people completely disconnected from one another might converge to a very similar solution or answer—it doesn’t matter if you’re in Africa or somewhere else—you might have access to a similar level of knowledge and sophistication. We’re all swimming in the same ocean of knowledge as a commodity that’s available to everybody.
Milan Ivosevic VP R&D and Innovations, CooperSurgical
FEI 2024 & Key Innovation Perspectives
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