I think one of my fears about AI is that it becomes yet another usability patch to make amends for the fact we've built the future on the foundations of tomorrow.
It becomes a way to just about make it possible to carry on using systems that are not fit for purpose.
It's another refurbishment of an airport built in the wrong place, for the wrong planes, with the wrong terminals.
Realistically a lot of core IT systems are crumbling.
- Databases across the world that can't talk to each other.
- Data kept by companies is dirty, wrong, badly measured, out of date, with unknown provenance nor permissions attached.
- Endless workarounds, kludges, bandaids, middle wear, and patches which now mean people know that things work, but not how or why.
- Most IT systems are built in isolation, the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, the Human Resources Management (HRM) systems, or Business Intelligence , let alone project management or supply chain, or marketing automation etc.
- Most IT systems are still not flexible, not scalable, custom built, not containerized, they have huge security flaws, and key vendors locked in, so there is no incentive or possibility to change.
- The more critical the system, the less likely it is to be modern, fast, and maintained
And because of these flawed systems, we've ended up working around programs.
It's super easy with AI to make a stunning looking front end, check out images like this, it's easy to make wonderful, conversational UI's and wonderful looking pages
The issues are that all the backends are messed up. The data pulled from is wonky.
We need to use AI to rebuild the foundations for companies, not make a better patch on a system.
So as nice as images and sites like this are, showing how easy it is to make websites, what about the pipes that feed into it, what about the backend, what about rethinking the ambition of what lies behind it
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