I stumbled upon a great term a couple of days ago which, I think, if it had been commonplace in the industry many years ago, would have had a profound effect on technology today. Perhaps we would not be in the place we are now where the tech broligrachy has led us to the point that IT leaders are likely to become natural casting for Bond villains for the next decade.
God knows, many of them have appeared hellbent on ensuring they get the call to audition for the role through their own statements and actions. But a large part of their ascent to untold wealth and influence has been facilitated by the way the tech industry has made it possible for people to be rewarded and elevated much too quickly based on far too little.
You don’t need artificial intelligence (or super intelligence for that matter) to tell you that concentrating more and more wealth in the hands of a small number of centi-billionaires and trillionaires is bound to have disastrous effects for larger and larger swathes of the general global population. It’s made even worse by the fact that technology has elevated people to these positions who have neither the wisdom, experience or empathy to understand the effects of their actions on the wider world. At least, that’s the most sympathetic interpretation as it would be almost incomprehensible to believe they are fully aware of the consequences their actions.
Which brings me back to the term I heard. In the channel, we all know and appreciate the label of ‘trusted adviser’. For many channel partners, it’s something to constantly aspire to and a badge of honour when they are acknowledged as such. It’s easy to understand why. Trust is an incredibly valuable commodity. It’s not something that is handed over as freely as money.
It does beg the question of why customers should need a ‘trusted’ adviser in the first place, particularly for the IT industry. Either that’s a reflection on the quality of advisers available to customers buying technology products and services or it’s an admission that customers can’t trust some of the vendors selling those products and services.
It seems more likely that advisers are seeking to be ‘trusted’ for their capacity to recommend the most appropriate and reliable service and product to meet the customer’s requirements. Their ability to fulfil that objective on a regular basis is what gains them the accolade of being trusted.
But what if they’re been approaching this from the wrong angle? What if, instead of being trusted, they would better serve their customers and the industry as ‘sceptical advisers’?
Our industry is fuelled by hype but hype has real-world consequences. Vendors have to spend money to sustain it and customers have to pay for it to become reality, although far too often it doesn’t quite match the promise. Right now, we’re in the midst of a massive hype-athon around AI which, for the past few years, has been unchecked and barely unregulated. Staggering amounts of money, real and imagined, have been assigned to turning the AI dream into reality.
But far too much of the associated harm and damage to communities in terms of issues such as energy use, water use and the environment has, until relatively recently, been ignored or dismissed. Now, as we are fast approaching the point at which it is becoming impossible to hide those potential consequences, the backlash is beginning. Opposition to the unaccountable development of data centres and the potentially nightmarish consequences of realising the broligarchy’s AI dreams was a major theme in the US midterm elections.
Trust, such as it was, has been replaced not only by scepticism but open hostility. It’s not harsh to say the tech industry has brought that upon itself. If there had been more scepticism over the years, we might be in a better place today. We can only hope that the seismic change in attitudes to AI and date centres leaves the tech industry shaken and stirred. I’d like to say it will but…I’m sceptical.
Ltd
