What Shakespeare Says About Artificial Intelligence
Shakespeare’s First Folio was 400 years old in November.
Which got me thinking about what the Bard might have thought about AI and the changes in business and society that it is influencing at the moment. As with many modern cultural topics, Shakespeare’s depth and genius allows us to find potential answers to problems that are just as relevant today as they were in his day, even if the specifics of the challenges might be different.
Think knife crime and gang violence on the streets (Romeo and Juliet), suicide and depression (Hamlet, Macbeth), and gender identity (just about every comedy).
But more specific to the subject at hand, Shakespeare does write about predicting the future and the ability to create coded language by a few highly-skilled experts – witches, wizards and fairies – to influence people’s future behaviour (Macbeth, The Tempest, Midsummer Night’s Dream).
So it’s not unreasonable to look at Shakespeare and see if he has anything to say about transformational change, digital experiences and the AI revolution. Here are some themes and thoughts that are relevant digital transformation and AI for the 21st century.
- “All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players” (As You Like It)
Business transformation is about people, not tech. While everyone is talking about tech and AI, it’s very easy to forget, and perhaps tempting, to forget that. The road of digital transformations is littered with tech projects that failed to consider people’s behaviour and incentives to use them. Tech and AI work best when they augment and support people and their roles, not replace them.
But the age of AI offers a “brave new world” (The Tempest) of robots and it’s tempting for investors to see them as a replacement to people. Indeed, for some, the role of the human workforce is to support the machines, not the other way round; store pickers, gig workers or box packers have been given targets or conditions that can support automation, including the famous example of the grilling in a Parliament select committee about a “three strikes and you’re out” policy at an online distribution centre in Bristol. So far, many tech-led businesses have resisted processes like unionisation of the workforce, or the recognition of some workers’ rights.
In this context, human workers are perhaps then not seen as full people, but as players or mannequins that can be replaced by others, if they don’t perform their tasks (or say their lines) correctly. Increasingly, such a viewpoint will be difficult to maintain and may well be legislated against, but for most businesses any transformation is about improving employee performance, so forgetting to think about them as people will lead to failure.
2. “How poor are they that have not patience” (Othello)
“Wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast” (Romeo and Juliet)
The culture of immediacy and instant reward is a general challenge in modern society; indeed, the dopamine hit of social media interactions and likes is changing an entire generation’s behaviour and expectations about life. So the idea that digital transformations might provide similarly immediate impact is a cultural thing, but it doesn’t make any more realistic. Patience is the most underrated virtue, and by far the most important for managing AI.
For one thing, you will need lots of data; in general, the more data the better. This almost certainly means time. Most will have historical records, so you can use this, but if you need to capture new data, you will need to give it time. You can use certain techniques, like synthetic data, to fill in gaps if needed, but you will still need good quality data and a lot of it.
But patience is most important when you are looking for results. It’s essential, for instance, in CRO programmes, because you have to let customers try your different experiences, and see what happens; you can’t rush customers. But for larger change programmes, it’s also vital to follow Friar Lawrence’s advice (from Romeo and Juliet above). You will pick up insights about customers and indeed your own team’s adoption and satisfaction along the way. It’s important to set yourself some quick wins to show value, but the overall impact will be longer term, and rushing to get results will cause problems. Leaving aside the risk of forcing a result and disenfranchising teams, there is also a wider unintended consequence. Having got teams on board for your transformation, calling success too early and impatiently can mean they disengage, or worse, actively oppose the programme, on the basis that it’s now “done its job”. Keeping the team together for longer will ensure you get the right results.
3. “By indirection find direction out!” (Hamlet)
Polonius, who says this line, is the incompetent windbag of a politician at court, and this line is normally played for comic effect. So, it’s perhaps ironic that this is a very pithy description of the valuable principle of multivariate testing. This links to the previous point about patience, but more importantly having the confidence and empowerment to amend and change experiences and content to see which one works best. It recognises that you and your team might not know what is the best answer, and are prepared to find out by letting the customer decide.
In other words, Shakespeare advises “to test and learn”.
I’m sure there are other topics that I have missed, and other quotes or parallels that can be made; I’d be interested to hear any suggestions you may have. And no doubt there will be further lessons as the current AI revolution advances and society and technology evolve accordingly. But for me, this has highlighted the undervalued cultural traits of patience, humility, courage, self-awareness, and the value and impact on society that AI can have, which are all so easily forgotten at the pace we live, and work, today.