Can Artificial Intelligence ‘alert’ Project Managers?

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This blog is written in the backdrop of Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai heralding “Artificial Intelligence’ as “We will move from mobile first to an AI first world." in the recently held Google I/O 2016.  Science becomes spectacular in its endeavor to make possible the deemed impossible, reminding Robert Kennedy “There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”

Sometimes it’s so surreal. When the movie ‘Minority Report’ , a concept conceived in the late nineties and hit the silver screen by 2002, the reviews about the sci-fi was superb and many wondered what could the world be in 2054  as set as timeline in the movie. It was half-a century away. Everything can be put in place past the event or outcome but possible to predict something to happen with precision? Plausible? From a technology perspective, the spectacle that dazzled us with 3-D, touch screen depicting data on-demand, transportation and logistics, the movie ported us to a scientific space of sophisticated software and advanced intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence as the key driver

The breakthrough in AI is simply breathtaking. and going places that Mars may not be the final frontier. Today you can key-in or just use voice for search – any kind of search. Different people have different needs and the system is so intelligent and efficient to identify the ‘searcher’ to serve customized results and also recommendation on the screen.  IBM is working on digital advertising screens that can play advertisements best suiting the consumer’ preference using the RFID technology, picking their shopping flair and taste from their payment cards and phones that use RFID chips.  

A Japanese company has created digital signage that can organize through The customer facial recognition software and cameras helps to identify the gender, age and range in displaying advertisement best fitting the democracy - Typical customer-centric campaigns to promote products and services.

If anything, AI is growing from strength to strength. Look no further for evidence – just search for something in Google and check how soon and swift the results came through.  Does it rain or shine? The forecast for the week?  Or check the kids play Mariocart or Xbox where simulations or gesture-based gaming to the  driverless car. In the movie Minority Report, the newspaper will update itself for latest news. Today, why don't you   check the Google news page which is almost there with its updates, though not auto-refresh.  There is much more than that meets the eye. This is an era of information overload and hence developments sometimes are overshadowed or even go unnoticed.  Impressively, human’s pursuit to make ideas to realities is relentless.

Artificial Intelligence and Project Management

What’s the probability that the lead programmer in the team will show up for work tomorrow? Will the server hold up till the end or tank all of a sudden? Will the project meet its deadline and deliver?

Your guess is as good as anyone.  

For the scope of this account, let’s confine to human resources and hardware. If Big Data is growing powerful with predictive analysis as a powerful and potent tool, what will happen Artificial Intelligence is employed to study and predict personnel about presence and performance.  Can the Intelligence available alert about the impending change(s)? Can we leverage on behavorial biometrics for human identficiation and expand its scope to mine data?

In Seoul, AlphaGo, an AI system created by Google, crushed Lee Sedol, an 18-time world champion who is regarded as the decade's top player of Go - an abstract strategy board game. The victory meant that "AI-calculated-faster-than-a-human”. Agreed, but the AI-calculator was again created by human mind and its very unfair to state Seedol lost, rather collective brains won that day.

So if Big Data can do the imagined and beyond, can it rise up to the challenge is by providing statistics and information about human behavior, more from human physiology and psyche? Efforts are underway and research is ongoing, like ‘social character’ , or ‘Human Genome Project ‘providing insights into genes, which hopefully can wade into rough waters to understand the incredibly complex human system. Though the goal of this study of Human Genome is to create personalized medicines, use analytics to check a cure is within a particular timeline, can it not encompass behavioral traits as well? 

The if-only theory that a Project Manager applies in analyzing team’s composition and hardware infrastructure – “if only the server didn’t shutdown without warning”, “if only the programmer didn’t fall sick”, “if only the architect didn’t drop his papers ”, “if only there was a backup before the power failed”…….all these can be written as useful Use Cases with alternate scenarios. From a Project Manager’s desk, Technology in the form of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence can empower at arriving at informed decisions – especially about health reports of both men and machines, then risks can be mitigated to a greater extent and the assurance of the success of any undertaking will be expectedly high. Artificial Intelligence, in this context of human understanding and analysis,  is extremely challenging given the multi-layered, multi-dimensional and multi-faceted undertaking that’s complicated in its complexities. Many doubt its possibility, but then so did the skeptics when “Minority Report’ was released.  Spielberg views sounds psychic “I wanted all the toys to come true someday. I want there to be a transportation system that doesn't emit toxins into the atmosphere. And the newspaper that updates itself...”

Mankind shares the same sanguinity that Artificial Intelligence arms the Project Manager with the ability to view way ahead in predicting scientifically about a project holistically - the entire ecosystem.