'Humanity ready for the Ai challenge, companies invest in semantic capital'

Corporate culture and Gen AI: what should be the recipe for companies to not only adopt Gen AI, but make it an integral part of their culture, embracing it as a business opportunity?

Corporate culture should be updated not only in terms of integration, as is most often the case, but in terms of restructuring the company, without prejudice to its strategic values. There is often an attempt to change as little as possible, to integrate but maintain the past, perhaps adding a few new things. In this way, however, change is not dealt with efficiently. One continues to participate in the game of competition without having a chance to win it, without being able to lead it.

In a constructive scenario, management must not only manage, but must have vision; there is a need for strategic management that leads and does not undergo innovation. It is the company that has control and strategy that makes the difference. When there is managerial vision, restructuring becomes something that is not risky, that is part of a competition. The manager who does not risk has no ideas, or is too old or is waiting to move on to another position. Then, in most cases, he opts for a petty integration that at best keeps the company in the race, but denies it the chance to win the competition.

 In a study on OECD data that we analysed as the Generation Ai Observatory, it emerges that only 29% of women use Ai compared to a percentage of men, how do you explain this? Can a project like Orbits contribute to bridging this gap ?.

Women are less involved in AI, but the skills are there. Looking at the numbers, some interesting aspects emerge. The figure of women using AI matches that of women involved in STEM, 29 per cent. There is a very serious absence: we have human resources that we are not hiring and essential skills that could be used.

I would insist on this. Italy does not shine for the presence of women in STEM fields, not to mention the North-South divide. We need more training, scholarships, initiatives, but above all we need a cultural change, since we still think in terms of courses or jobs for girls and for boys, separately. While on the training side the issue is played out on the goodwill of companies, on the cultural side the solution is more difficult. The numbers of women in AI speak of problems that are at the foundations of our societies.

Regarding semantic capital, the focus of the second edition of Orbits to be held on 19 and 20 November at the Palazzo del Ghiaccio in Milan, how do you think it can influence the way companies and SMEs approach and use Gen AI, especially in a context where information and understanding are key resources?

Semantic capital is the theme we chose because the relationship between AI and human intelligence will become increasingly important. Ai has the ability to produce content or arrive at interesting strategies and approaches in the corporate world. All this artificial productivity is placing more and more emphasis on an ever-increasing demand for intelligence, interpretation and understanding: to know what sense it makes to ask what questions to the model on duty, to understand what the right answers are, and how to apply them. Semantic capital is needed to have a vision that gives meaning and significance to automated processes. To those who say: 'Ai does it all now, the self-driving car does it all', it must be answered that someone will have to decide how and where to go, and why, and choosing from which alternatives.

To give an example, it is as if someone wanted to perfectly remake a face: any 'madonnaro' in Via del Corso in Rome can do it, but why not Michelangelo? Ai is taking away the illusion that the 'madonnaro' is a great artist. Production, that is, can be done perfectly well by the Ai, but the great company will be the one that, like the true artist who knows how, when and why to produce an original message. This illusion that everything is done by Ai is a big blunder.

The ability to give meaning and significance to things: this is the theme chosen by Orbits. There is much to be done, soft skills are needed and the demand for human intelligence has increased.

Companies, therefore, must invest in semantic capital, and the only owners of the latter are human beings. The value of companies will increasingly be on the intangible. It is a trend that has been there for a long time, but Ai has emphasised, highlighted, and accelerated it. In this context, there is an increasing need for human intelligence. We will talk about this in a morning that will not be a show, a convention, a play, but a mixture of all these elements. A dynamic talk, with masterly staging by Sergio Pappalettera, with the intention of engaging the audience with interesting and useful ideas, both for understanding our times and for returning to the company with new visions and changing tomorrow for the better.