Ok, as someone who deals with logistics, package delivery, and the evolving business models operating in the space; I have observed a disconnect between A.I. and the Human delivery driver.

Prior to the emergence of Direct Delivery by Amazon, deliveries were made by UPS, USPS, and Fed Ex. The deliveries generally occurred within a predictable time frame and were made by the same driver. This allowed you to develop a relationship with the driver, allowed the driver to understand your business, all which minimized any disruptions in the service that might develop.

In the past 6 months, I have been in an ongoing battle with Amazon to deliver packages to my place of employment in a timely fashion. Once I create a dialogue with the driver, they understand the businesses needs, and that driver if used on our route again, delivers during our hours of operation. The communication falls apart when Amazon dispatches different drivers daily, each who do not have experience with the route they are delivering packages to. Why do they do this?

From what I have learned, Amazon uses DSP (delivery service partners) to deliver the packages that Amazon routes on their mapping algorithm, which provides direction to the network on how the packages are to be delivered. Problem is that I have been told a driver (1) Can not deviate from the algorithm, and is at times unable to scan the packages at a stop if delivered out of order, (2) they do not differentiate business from residential customers, who may have different needs, different hours, so might require a different approach? Here it seems that the technologist that created the algorithm deployed it without soliciting input from those that make deliveries for a living.

Why would using the same driver make sense for a business: (1) Today, businesses need to provide a secure and safe facility. Having the same driver introduces a degree of predictability (not all can afford an Amazon Hub). (2) As a driver the first thing you do is look at your route and then determine which stops have bathrooms that you may be able to utilize. When you are in a truck all day, knowing where the bathrooms are located are kinda a big deal. (3) Having a different route each day may allow for some optimization, but might also introduce some frustration, as deliveries may arrive after a business is closed. If the purpose of Prime is to deliver within a specified time frame, then is it not in your best interest to live up to your promise? Amazon’s business model in the retail space has been built on the backs of trusted delivery networks, that banked trust will evaporate if they don’t interject a degree of humanity into the algorithmic driven system they are seeking to implement.

My complaint is not with the drivers, but with the rigidity of the technology that has not adapted to the conditions on the ground, and learned that the sheer speed of the promise of one day delivery, does not always “value” the driver, and is overly reliant on an algorithm that does not always serve the best interests of its clients. For a business, predictability, familiarity, and responsiveness are of value, so perhaps adapting to their needs would be a value add?

          Learning how to channel the turtle and the rabbit in one’s life is essential in navigating our ecosystem. Harnessing those forces is important, but when it comes to the ability to access information and knowledge, no or slow connections are not a recipe for success. In the U.S. we label “high speed” internet access as 25 mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speed, a standard that favors large companies that want to treat the internet as a vehicle for the consumption of entertainment rather than one for education, health care, or work.  If you want equal download and upload speeds, then you pay up for it. 

            The nervous system for our informational superhighway in the U.S. is made up of copper and coaxial cable with only a small percentage of our communities utilizing fiber, especially in those that connect people’s homes.  Stateside, fiber, only accounts for 14% of our high-speed connections and local cable companies account for 84% of those connections.  In those area’s where you get 100 mbps 94% of those subscriptions are sold by the cable company.  In rural areas 80% of the population does not have access to 100 mbps internet.  Sixty percent of people making $20,000 or less don’t have wired access-not even copper, but 80% of people making between $50,000 and $75,000 do.  If you travel around the globe you will see that there are countries who do better than we do.  In South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong they can get gigabit internet (10 times faster than 100 mbps) for between $30 and $50 a month. In Sweden, 70% of its citizens get 100 mbps internet for download/upload for $35/$40 a month with plans to have 98% of its residents provided with gigabit internet by 2025.  The country of Singapore has a number of companies that offer gigabit fiber internet access to the home for $40-$60 a month.  Back here in the states, in the city of New York, a subscription for 100 mbps download/upload internet will cost you $105, while a 500 mbps connection will run you $305 dollars with no gigabit service available. In the Traveler’s backyard they offer a $300+ gigabit package but the infrastructure underground is only coaxial cable. Makes me wonder how that works? Information pulses through the glass that makes up fiber, faster the pulse, the faster the ride; but if you don’t have the pipes, does it really work? Even cutting-edge wireless needs fiber to work the way it should. Because a system that has a fiber backbone and uses wireless is only as strong as the signal it sends and is weakened the more people draw from it.  So, why is fiber important? It is important because it is a digital and non-digital entrepreneurs gateway to a world that can unleash their creative energies. As mentioned earlier, the U.S. only has 14% high speed fiber while in China there are 120 million households connected to fiber and they will have 300 million of its 455 million households connected to fiber in the year 2020.   

            In the U.S. we treat quality high speed gigabit fiber internet access as a luxury, not as a “public good”. Do we want to build gated communities both digital and physical that enjoy a robust and limitless world of creative tools reserved only for those that can afford it? I know in an earlier post, I mentioned some of the challenges an A.I. economy will present. However, even a world that creates a New Social Contract that values pro social community based service, education, and care, you will still need to leverage the digital tools that will allow you to effectively communicate your services, manage the books, and educate the community. Are we cheating ourselves by surrendering our power to Corporate powers who do not have an incentive to provide gigabit access to all, especially when most of the proceeds of their ventures go to the shareholders; instead of the citizen.  Imagine what our world would look like if way back in 1935, FDR, did not create the Rural Federal Electrification Administration? That government effort led to the possibility of nearly half of U.S. farms having access to electricity by the year 1950.  You think that if we wanted to unlock pent up entrepreneurial energy in under-served areas, and wanted to provide better service to the under-served for business and educational purposes, that a community based local model that put its citizens first might work today?

            In a January 23, 2018 article in Vice, “More than 750 American Communities Have built their own Internet Networks” they describe an effort in some communities where they are offering better service, higher speeds, and more transparency.  According to their figures: there are 55 municipal networks serving 108 communities with a publicly owned fiber to home network, 76 communities offer access to a locally owned cable company that serves most or all the community, and 258 communities are served by a rural electric cooperative.  Large corporate interests resist this effort, in 20 states ISP’s have passed laws that protect their business model and hamper local efforts to build publicly owned local networks. The reason is simple: Profits.  In Seattle, robust competition would cost Comcast between $20 Million to $84 million a year.  Instead of seeing the innovative approach on the local level and accepting the challenge to out innovate and offer better, cheaper broadband; they spend money to lobby politicians and pass laws to prevent people from finding a better way. Is this American capitalism at work, or a regulatory captured perverted version of it? I fear, here in the world of connectivity and the exchange of information that vacuum’s impact is felt as well.

            In an era of dynamic change and a changing climate Municipal networks can nurture and provide a community with resiliency.  A local municipal fiber network can: (1) Allow a community to rebound from Severe weather, (2) Stimulate + Attract New Businesses, (3) Attract + Retain citizens (Homes with gigabit internet access have a 7.1% edge in value over homes with a 25 mbps internet connection, especially when 43% of those millennials able to afford a home say internet connectivity would be a deciding factor), (4) Lower Dependency on Large Incumbent Communication Companies (especially when they don’t see the “value” in connecting your community), and (5) Adapt to technology changes and demands (5G and beyond). If the large windfalls that incumbent players are enjoying are not invested in all of the communities they serve, if profit determines where the fiber is placed, and your ability to pay up determines who gets access, then who are we saying should have access in our ecosystem?

            Information is power, light is transformative, so why don’t we treat next generation high speed internet access the same way we treat electricity and water? Do we want to keep people in the dark?

Resources used:

Fiber, The Coming Tech Revolution, and why America might miss it, Susan Crawford

Fiber Broadband Association:, https://www.fiberbroadband.org/

https://www.hrgreen.com/articles/top-5-ways-municipal-fiber-networks-can-help-communities-with-resiliency/

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3np4a/new-municipal-broadband-map

Next Century Cities and Becoming Fiber Ready – A Community Roadmap and Toolkit:

Becoming Broadband Ready

            What I hope I have done through my writing is point out how our current system as structured has not “valued” the work people have done, as evidenced by the low wages a large swath of people has experienced. My conclusion is that it has been the result of Trickle-Down economics and modern business theory that has told us that the primary purpose of a corporation is to maximize “Shareholder Value”. 

            This focus on shareholder value has emerged right around the time that the general purpose technology behind computers, tablets, and smart phones started to become more of a part of our everyday lives.  Some technologists call this the “great decoupling” where improvements in productivity do not translate into higher wages or an increased demand for jobs. During the Industrial revolution innovations like the steam engine and electricity made it possible to ramp up productivity by deskilling the production of goods. What once was done by a skilled craftsman by hand was done by a machine requiring a human to perform at a lower skill level at a greater scale. In the digital age it introduces a “skills bias” into the system that favors higher skilled technological workers who manage digital tools. This makes those who have acted as the cogs and wheels in our ecosystem to become at risk of being replaced.  Numerous studies say that A.I. will displace workers but the numbers they predict vary widely.  Planning how our society will deal with this is crucial.  PwC estimates that by the year 2030 A.I. will add $15.7 trillion to the global economy. 

            A.I. will first focus on taking over tasks that (1) can be optimized using data, and (2) do not require social interaction.  Unlike the days when the steam engine and electricity empowered more people to perform a task, these tasks will be replaced by intelligent machines.  Those industries where white collar workers perform tasks where they take in information and make decisions or recommendations based on that information with minimal social interaction, those will be the most exposed to being replaced by intelligent machines. Once a Digital algorithm is created it can be freely distributed at little to no cost and updated for free. It can also be used to create a business model where “humans” were never part of the equation (see Smart Finance) as the A.I. and the digital tools will compete against employee heavy competitors, thus leading to a reduction in jobs to remain competitive.

            In 2018, the Consulting Firm, Bain and Company, concluded that by 2030 employers will need 20 to 25 percent fewer employee’s (30 to 40 million U.S. workers). If you factor in automation and wage suppression, then 80% of all workers will be impacted.  Initially most of that impact will be felt in those occupations that can be replaced by A.I. algorithms. Moravec’s paradox says that it is easy for A.I. to mimic high level intellectual or computational abilities of an adult, but it is far harder to give a robot the perception and sensorimotor skills of a toddler. So, unlike the physical automation of the Industrial revolution, white collar, not blue-collar work will be the most at risk in the emerging A.I. economy.

            If A.I. will perform tasks better than humans, then wouldn’t it be wise for us to shift our economic ecosystem to one that elevated those area’s where being “human” is the true value we can add?  Would it be worth it to explore policies that ask the question: “are we more than the sum of our economically productive parts”? Our ecosystem at the moment is running the following program “ the purpose of life is to accumulate and hold onto wealth” and we keep refining and repeating the process. Can we do better?

            In Reading “A.I. Super-Powers, China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order” by Kai Fu Lee I was introduced to the idea of a “Social Investment Stipend”.  The Stipend is a decent government salary given to those who invest their time and energy in those activities that promote a kind, compassionate, and creative society. Three broad categories would be eligible: care work, community service, and education. All pro social activities that leverage our humanity. This New Social Contract would be based on valuing and rewarding socially beneficial activities in the same way we currently reward economically productive activities.  It would not replace the social safety net but serve as a way to provide a respectable income to those who choose to invest their energy in socially productive activities.   His point was that in an age in which intelligent machines have supplanted us as the cogs and gears in the engine of our economy, it makes sense to nurture and value all of these pursuits, so we can build a more humane society. We need to make a lot of progress on this front, because at the moment the two fastest growing professions in the U.S. are Home Health Aides and Personal Care Aides (1.2 million jobs by 2026) that earn an average annual income of just over $20,000 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). I believe we would need to transition into such a system, and it would require us to levy a super tax on digital behemoths that control A.I. (if anti-trust laws are not fundamentally altered).  But exploring such an approach is warranted because in an emerging A.I. economy the smaller number of available jobs will consist of lucrative work for highly skilled technological workers (and those capable of repairing the emerging equipment) and low paying jobs in tough industries. The middle will be hollowed out.  From a policy standpoint we need to work at addressing the current inequalities in our ecosystem, updating the system, and then exploring policy idea’s like the one above that can be beneficial to society. I favor this approach over a Universal Basic Income because a UBI accepts a dystopian future where people simply collect a check without being given an opportunity to contribute pro social energy towards socially beneficial activities.  

            This idea can even extend to Climate Change, where we can create a system where people around the world are empowered to pick up the plastic in their communities in exchange for goods and services. Have people power serve as the grass roots recyclers who will clean up the environment and provide the feed stock to an industry that repurposes and recycles the material to make new products. The concept is called Social Plastic, and it is out there, and businesses are currently trying to implement it.

            Planning for the future requires us to abandon short term, quarter to quarter thinking where we maximize shareholder value and cling too tightly to the “hyper individualism” that is rooted in our culture.  Would it make sense to work at transcending the tribal mindset and move towards a system where we foster a more pro social attitude and attempt to build, nurture, and construct a diverse community that values the “humanity” in us? What would such a system have at its foundation? Unconditional Love!      

A theme in my writing is that vacuum and how we have structured our economic ecosystem in a way that undervalues a large segment of our population and their contributions to it. Most of the time I will try to focus on policy prescription idea’s that might be worth a closer look. Today I want to lay out a few questions that I encourage people to “Chew On” as a friend would say.

• How does the marketing message of “fear” in our economic ecosystem cause the majority of Americans to accept the status quo?

•  How does “conditional love” factor into how we perceive and value citizens in our economic ecosystem?

• How do we weaponize someone’s “vulnerability” in our economic ecosystem, and engage in a zero-sum game in which we compete for limited resources in a system that is based on a scarcity marketing message?  

• Why do we accept low wages when the productivity gains made during the last 40 years should have translated into twice the increase for a majority of its citizens?

• Do we allow our idea of “Hyper-Individualism” get in the way of advocating for more collective action that benefits the majority of citizens and realize that we do better when we work as a team? One team?

• How do we let the inaction of our politicians cause us to throw up our hands, and say why bother? Nothing changes? Both parties put tribe before country and say if you’re not in our tribe, your wrong? Even if an idea might be worth listening to?

• Why do we choose to engage in a race to the bottom? Instead of inspiring, encouraging, and motivating one another to engage in a race to the top?

• Why do we let outer appearances dictate how we behave, react, and interact? Culture, ethnicity, faith create the diversity that should strengthen not weaken U.S.? Finally, do the majority of us appear the same when we view one another as an X-ray technician might? So, how different are we?

• Does reacting to perceived grievances accomplish more than proactively understanding another’s position, and listening and hearing what they might have to say? Attempting to walk in another one’s shoes?

Our system of government in the U.S is not an entitlement. It is a legacy system that is operating on investments made long ago. Every system needs to be nurtured so that it may yield a vibrant and valued community where each person’s contribution matters. A system that creates and provides the space needed for all to maximize that opportunity. History is littered with Empires, Republics, and Systems of government that did not survive the test of time. By encouraging the vacuum, by creating more extreme economic divides, whether spatial or social, are we failing to make the necessary updates to our system? What price will we pay for our short-term thinking?