Mike & Amit Talk Tech

AI is a double-edged sword for the environment. Its growth requires masses of energy, water, and rare earth metals. The LLMs of tomorrow may even require the world to bring old power plants, powered by fossil fuels, back online. On the other hand, AI has the potential to accelerate sustainable transformation by providing innovative approaches to energy production and consumption.   So, is AI a gro...

Michael Wade is a Professor of Innovation and Strategy and Director of the IMD Global Center for Digital Business Transformation. He also holds the Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation. An expert in digital transformation, he has published 10 books and more than 100 case studies, as well as articles on topics such as digital business transformation, innovation, strategy, and digital lead...

***** Michael Wade is a Professor of Innovation and Strategy and Director of the IMD Global Center for Digital Business Transformation. He also holds the Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation. An expert in digital transformation, he has published 10 books and more than 100 case studies, as well as articles on topics such as digital business transformation, innovation, strategy, and digita...

The IMD AI Safety Clock is a tool designed to evaluate the risks of Uncontrolled Artificial General Intelligence (UAGI) – autonomous AI systems that operate without human oversight and could potentially cause significant harm. Our mission is to evaluate and communicate these risks to the public, policymakers, and business leaders, helping ensure the safe development and use of AI technologies.   *...

Mike and Amit explore the impact of emerging technologies on finance. ***** Michael Wade is a Professor of Innovation and Strategy and Director of the IMD Global Center for Digital Business Transformation. He also holds the Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation. An expert in digital transformation, he has published 10 books and more than 100 case studies, as well as articles on topics suc...

Since the dawn of history, humans have turned to technological innovations to win wars. In the battle of Agincourt, French knights saw their superior numbers whittled down by English longbows. On the fields of Flanders, tanks and machine guns heralded a new age of mechanized destruction. The advent of TNT brought explosive power to battlefields long before the atomic bomb changed the face of war f...

This year, Amazon celebrated 30 years in business. By creating a virtual space where (almost) everything was available at the click of a button, the Seattle-based tech firm changed the face of retail. Tempted away from brick-and-mortar stores by the convenience of online shopping, Amazon created a whole new kind of consumer. However, not all of its retail ideas have been successful. The company re...

In an era of desk jobs, sedentary lifestyles are common. Combined with the rise of ultra-processed food, it's no wonder so many people find it hard to stay in shape, despite their best intentions. To help out, there's a plethora of tech to choose from. From apps that count calories to wearable health trackers, innumerable gadgets promise a slimmer, stronger you. But at what point does all this tec...

Mike and Amit discuss how games like football and tennis have paved the way for the $2bn industry of Esports. ********* Michael Wade is a Professor of Innovation and Strategy and Director of the IMD Global Center for Digital Business Transformation. He also holds the Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation. An expert in digital transformation, he has published 10 books and more than 100 cas...

There's no doubt that statistics and data play an important role in professional sports. Whether in soccer, cricket, or American football, superfans have always been interested in goals scored, passes caught, or wickets taken.   But the point at which the value of that data became apparent was the advent of "Moneyball" in the early 2000s, which revolutionized Major League Baseball. Popularized by...

Mike and Amit talk about the giant chipmaker NVIDIA, and how it's creating the technology of tomorrow. ********* Michael Wade is a Professor of Innovation and Strategy and Director of the IMD Global Center for Digital Business Transformation. He also holds the Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation. An expert in digital transformation, he has published 10 books and more than 100 case studi...

In March 2024, the European Union approved the world’s first set of major regulatory rules to govern artificial intelligence. The EU AI Act categorizes technologies by risk – low, medium, high, and "unacceptable." Those deemed the most dangerous can, in Europe, be shut down entirely. It was a huge change in the tech world, but many may wonder why it was needed. Forms of AI have been used for decad...

Mike & Amit talk about the future of Biotech, and how Artificial Intelligence may speed up healthcare and drug development. ********* Michael Wade is a Professor of Innovation and Strategy and Director of the IMD Global Center for Digital Business Transformation. He also holds the Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation. An expert in digital transformation, he has published 10 books and...

The 21st century has been dominated by video. At its start, camcorders allowed amateurs to make their own home movies, and by 2023, the likes of TikTok had become ubiquitous. Phones and social media platforms made shooting and editing child play. But 2024 is seeing another change, one that may shake the very foundation of video itself. Sora, from Open AI, is an Artificial Intelligence construct th...

From deepfakes to AI assistants, the technology of tomorrow may help or hinder the world depending on whose hands it's in. In the final episode of 2023, Mike and Amit discuss what to expect in the coming year, and give their predictions over how to prepare. ********* Michael Wade is a Professor of Innovation and Strategy and Director of the IMD Global Center for Digital Business Transformation. He...

The world has become familiar with artificial intelligence that can answer questions, often in a convincingly human manner. But so far, the technology has been limited by some key constraints. The first is that humans are still required to come up with the initial inputs, or 'prompts', to start conversations or processes. A second is that the relationship is bi-directional, interactions generally...

Since generative AI exploded into public consciousness, people and companies have been worrying about its ethics. But, says Amit Joshi, before considering rogue programs or the replacement of human thought, one must first consider the ABCs of AI ethics.     Accuracy is the first big issue. How can one trust or disseminate the work of generative AI when it is so prone to hallucinating?     Bias is...

It's hard to argue that generative AI won't improve productivity in the long run.  You only need to ask Chat GPT a few questions to understand how fast it can pull together disparate facts, help you structure a workday, or simply find you a recipe. Early studies are backing that up too. A recent review by Harvard University and Boston Consulting Group showed that consultants using large language m...

Open AI, the company behind ChatGPT, is probably the most famous of the emerging artificial intelligence powerhouses.  The firm is backed by Microsoft, a tech giant that hopes to dominate the world of generative AI. But several Silicon Valley titans like Google and Meta have other ideas. From Llama to Bard, AI-enabled chatbots and programs have been released at breakneck speed. The competition is...

In the first episode of Mike & Amit’s mini-series on artificial intelligence, our hosts discussed the birth of AlphaGo and the technological underpinnings of generative AI. But what makes ChatGPT different? Is there anything that fundamentally sets this latest generation of AIs apart from their predecessors? At heart, says Amit Joshi, generative AI is still based on probability. Based on a giv...

Artificial intelligence has been talked about for decades, but over the last year, there has been a shift in the conversation. The rise of ChatGPT and other forms of generative AI has led to a fierce debate. While some have heralded a new utopian world in which artificial intelligence fixes our problems, others have sounded the alarm, warning of a dystopian future ruled by machines. Global leaders...

Nuclear power was once associated with a brighter future. The technology to extract energy from uranium was scalable, efficient, and billed as a source of cheap, clean power for generations to come. So why has the promise of an atomic age failed to materialize? Today there are around 440 nuclear power generation stations around the world, accounting for only 10% of the total power that we consume....

Ten years ago, 3D printing was heralded as the answer to so many of life's problems.   By now we were supposed to be using a 3D printer to print our food, our clothes, and even to build the house of our dreams. Some predicted that 3D printers would be as common as washing machines and that most middle-class households would be making their day-to-day essentials out of liquid silicone.  The technol...

From ChatGPT to Apple Vision Pro, the latest tech products garner a lot of hype. But while AI chatbots have the potential to change our relationship with the internet, and spatial computing could do the same to the world around us, these tech developments might also fizzle out. Hype does not always result in success in the long run. To understand why that is, we need to look at concepts that just...

We're used to tech companies making big promises. A future filled with driverless cars, virtual realities to live in, and ever-more impressive gadgets. But what will these achievements amount to in a world ravaged by climate disasters? In the last decade, the global conversation has been dominated by two mega-trends: digitization and sustainability. Mike Wade says that there have been surprisingly...