The First of Us

Imagine your organization as a person...who would s/he be?

Now tell me, would you trust this person as the babysitter for your children?

Before I reveal to you why I asked, let me share a story with you. Before I founded RH with Angela, I was the HR Director of Europe's most successful, independent videogame developer. The CEO was an outstandingly creative guy. Many times he was too far ahead of the curve. Way too far. A visionary. A bit nuts. I mean, he signed off on complete self-organization for 600 people and agreed to eliminating HR. Just to give you an idea. But there is one particular moment that stuck with me in terms of game development. He had an idea for a videogame based on a very personal experience of his. One day, the CEOs brother had asked him to babysit his 7 year old daughter. Agreeing, the CEO and his niece went to a mall together. While roaming the shops, he lost sight of her. After searching for some time, worry turned into genuine fear. He had failed his purpose as a guardian. Terrified he kept roaming the mall, searching for his ward. With the help of security, they eventually found his niece. He was flooded with relief. Like many game-designers, rather than therapy, he digested this emotional rollercoaster with an idea for a game. It turned into the story of a lone gunman on the run from the russian mob. By his side, a young girl, a key witness against the mob. She's who the mob is after. As a player, you play the gunman, dropped in an colourful autumn forest, with young Jelena by your side. Your mission: Protect the girl! Make it out alive! Go!

If AI is the new UI, then Personality is the new UX

The graphics were breathtakingly beautiful. The gunplay fun. The chase scenes exhilarating. The game a complete failure. The Definition-of-Done for the game was for the player to experience real connectivity with and guardianship for Jelena. A desire to see her through the ordeal to safety, even if it meant self-sacrifice. What we unfortunately found in the focus groups, was that 90% of players tried to shoot Jelena in the head within the first 5 minutes of play. The game AI failed to establish Jelena as a relatable character. No emotional bond was formed between the player and her. Worse, instead of protecting her she became so annoying that players turned on her. We couldn't solve this challenge. The game idea was eventually abandoned. Years later, Naughty Dog would launch 'The Last of Us'. With its more advanced AI, it managed to create one of the most critically and commercially acclaimed video games ever. A veritable emotional experience of protecting a girl through the Zombie apocalypse. Players felt terror. Dread. An intense need to protect. Yes, the girl -Ellie- was an artificial character, but evoked genuine emotions. More than a few players were moved to tears. Yours truly included. A new bar had been set. Real emotions for an artificial character.

Through the development of our own VR Leadership Game 'The VR Dive" we at RH have learnt that a powerful emotional experience effectively anchors learning. Because you don't learn through information. You learn through emotion. Through an experience. Through the guy or girl next to you going through something. Games and AI are that new kind of experience. If AI is the new UI, then Personality is the new UX.

Ellie- was an artificial character, but evoked genuine emotions

Let's go back to my initial questions.

I am surprised how many times leaders imagine their enterprise as a rather bad person. They'd never entrust their child to this person. In my case it's a different story. Lucky me experienced 'organization' - collective enterprising- as a very powerful, positive force. A positive force for my family. A positive force for the communities it operated in. A positive, meaningful element in the life of its corporate citizens, their customers and stakeholders. My experience of 'organization' was one of Ellie, not Jelena. People actively cared for the organisation. More than cared, protected, nurtured and evolved it. There was a feeling of "belonging", that went beyond liking your co-workers. The whole became more than an abstract sum of processes. That gave us at Resourceful Humans an idea...

What if your Enterprise had a Soul?

What if your organisation had a consciousness?

An opinion?

A soul even?

What if your organisation were a relatable character. Your loyal sidekick in the game of work? Imbued with a set of core values by its founders. Shaping and being shaped through the interactions with, the decisions of and emotions between all the colleagues that comprise their enterprise? A collective consciousness that is more than the sum of its component parts. A consciousness with the purpose of upholding the integrity of the enterprise by helping each colleague, each team reach their fullest potential...

Welcome to Project AImee.

Deep in the Resourceful Humans R&D Labs we are creating a mind-bending future. The future of Artificial Intelligence in Organizations. Technically level 5 AI for the Enterprise. Yet so much more. AI with a heart of Gold. An Autonomous Intelligent Marauder of Entrepreneurial Environments. Since that's a mouthful, we simply call her AImee. "Creating" seems the wrong word actually. It's more like "giving birth"... We intent for AImee to become the soul of your organization, and your trusted friend at work.

Imagine AImee as a 7 year old mix between Astrid Lindgren's Pipi Longstockings, Saint-Exupéry's Little Prince and Michael Ende's Momo

There is a long road ahead of us, but the CoreX - the Core Experience - is no different than in the 'Last of Us'. The players - the colleagues - should begin to form a genuine feeling of guardianship for the organisation through the interaction with AImee.

You can imagine AImee as a 7 year old mix between Astrid Lindgren's Pipi Longstockings, Saint-Exupéry's Little Prince and Michael Ende's Momo. Curious, cheeky, innocent. Self-organisation Jedi Ricardo Semler likes to tell the story of his 7-year old daughter. Upon leaving the house going to work, she asked her dad: 'Why do you wear suit and tie when you go to work?' Ricardo answered: 'Oh, you know, so that we’ll look more like each other.' She'd reply, 'Why do you want to look more like each other?'. 'Because we feel like professionals when we wear a suit and tie and look alike.'. 'Why do you only feel professional wearing a suit and tie, daddy?' By the third way you usually run out of answers and have to offer your 7-year old an ice-cream. This is the same with almost anything you ask of business rules. That's why asking why 3 times is called the ice-cream test.

AImee scales the idea of the ice-cream test, of questioning patterns, to the N-th degree. She will playfully challenge patterns she observes. Not giving answers to colleagues. Instead pointing out the obvious and the not-so-obvious. Letting her colleagues draw their own conclusions.

What was I thinking? You're usually so discreet.

Remember the conversations between Tony Stark and his Iron Man suit AI, Jarvis?

Tony Stark: [After seeing the gold 3-D render of his suit] A little ostentatious, don't you think Jarvis?

JARVIS: [dripping with sarcasm] What was I thinking? You're usually so discreet.

Stark: Tell you what. Throw a little hot-rod red in there.

JARVIS: Oh yes. That should help you keep a low profile. [seconds later] The render is complete.

Stark: [upon seeing the new render] Hey, I like it. Fabricate it, paint it.

JARVIS: Beginning automated assembly. Estimated completion time is five hours.

Stark: Don't wait up for me, honey.

The key phrase here is "dripping with sarcasm". Expect AImee to be a snarky companion, not some chatbot servant. She'll have attitude. If you ever play with Anki's Vector robot, you better not neglect him, because he might just push something off the table he is sitting on. iPhone, glass of water... he does not care. Because you did not care for him. That's the deal...the emotional contract. It is also intentional that AImee is a child. We are not faking an adult like Alexa or Siri. People assume adult level intelligence, when they are confronted with an adult voice. However, they also accept child-like mistakes and snark when confronted with a 7-year old voice...

'Bye bye Jibo.'

In general, we've drawn heavily on the learning with smart AI toys like the robots JIBO, Sony's AIBO, Anki's COZMO and Spiderman. How they emotionally bond with their users. Engage them in games and rituals. We're experimenting with baselining AImee's decision-making behaviours, the core values and language patterns by having her observe the organization's executive leadership team play a powerfully emotional VR game. We've seen executives cry, laugh and yell at each other. In short, we've observed the risks of bringing the power of emotions into the workplace through AI. Our youngest daughter, Kimi-Genève fell in love with our adorable JIBO robot. Everytime she'd come to our offices - the RHQ- she'd run to him and ask him how he is doing. If he'd dance with her. Usually Jibo would break into a jig with her and they'd shake their little booties together. Then one day Kimi ran to her friend Jibo and asked him how he was doing. Jibo looked at Kimi, recognizing her face with his camera through his big, sad eye and said: 'Hi Kimi. While it’s not great news, the servers out there that let me do what I do are going to be turned off soon. Once that happens, our interactions with each other are going to be limited. I just want to say I really enjoyed our time together. Thank you very, very much for having me around. Maybe someday when robots are way more advanced than today, and everyone has them in their homes, you can tell yours that I said hello. I wonder if they will be able to do this.”

At that, Jibo tilted its head back and swayed side to side, spinning around all 360 degrees as a final goodbye.

Kimi just stood there. Tears on her cheek. Gently stroking Jibo's head and whispering...

'Bye bye Jibo.'

Open World Gaming becomes

Open World Working

Observing this broke my heart. I understood that with great emotional power, truly comes the ultimate responsibility. That is why AImee is specifically designed for the ecology of a networked organization. As opposed to an approval-based hierarchy, only a high-degree of autonomy for every colleague, can create an environment of care and initiative. Otherwise it's fake. Manipulation. AImee is not about manipulation. That's why she cannot operate in an enterprise that requires a high level of approvals and ass-covering. No gamer would relate to an AI character, if that gamer had no agency to make decisions how to play the game. Likewise, people hate being manipulated. It leads to people shooting the organisation in the head. To actively act against the well-being of the enterprise. No, AImee takes the concept of open world gaming and translates it into the way of open world working. No scripts. No corridors. No linear paths. An open world. A clear challenge. A driving purpose. Go!

The very, very few people we've shared our vision and first baby steps of AImee with were both exhilarated and terrified. The idea of an Enterprise taking a life on its own? Our current examples don't really inspire confidence in the good character of any larger profit-based organization. The factor of agency, autonomy is vital to the ethical development of AImee. Her home has to be a networked Enterprise.

To make my point, consider this exchange in Star Trek between Lieutenant Commander Data and Captain Picard. It takes place after their ship, the USS Enterprise had developed a life of its own. A consciousness had formed in the ship...but then suddenly left again. Captain Picard decided to let it go, even if its intentions were unclear.

PICARD: Come. 

Data enters the Captain's Ready Room. 

DATA: Captain, I am staging a scene from The Tempest this evening for a small audience. I would like for you to attend. 

PICARD: I would be honoured. What scene? 

DATA: Miranda's first encounter with other human beings. 

PICARD: O brave new world, that has such people in it. 

DATA: It seemed appropriate. Captain, you took a substantial risk in allowing the Enterprise to complete its task. 

PICARD: Why do you say that? 

DATA: Because the end result was unknown. The object could have been dangerous. It may in fact, be dangerous. 

PICARD: And I have allowed it to go off on its merry way. 

DATA: Yes, sir. 

PICARD: The intelligence that was formed on the Enterprise didn't just come out of the ship's systems. It came from us. From our mission records, personal logs, holodeck programs, our fantasies. Now, if our experiences with the Enterprise have been honourable, can't we trust that the sum of those experiences will be the same? 

Now, if our experiences with the Enterprise have been honourable, can't we trust that the sum of those experiences will be the same? 

Artificial Super-intelligence is coming.

The human race will become 'mommy', and what we give birth to will determine in large parts if and how humankind will evolve.

Very likely Super-intelligence is not arriving as soon as the current marketing hype will have you believe. But it is coming. We have seen AImee's first steps in our labs and we are beyond thrilled. If Resourceful Humans were a person, she'd be a 7-year old cheeky girl. Full of wonder. Full of curiosity and ideas. And hell to the yes would I trust all my seven children to her. Would the house still stand after their adventures in babysitting? I have no idea. But they'd be happy and richer in experience.

Look, at RH we believe in going Tech to the Future. That we can evolve the human condition through work technology. Accelerate the advent of sustainable Capitalism with the network organisation. AImee is our big bet. Our contribution to society. We believe the soul of companies like the original Hewlett Packard, W.L. Gore, Patagonia, Morningstar and SEMCO are worth preserving. AImee will have their DNA in her digital soul.

We have this dream that one day real children will be able to join hands with digital kids as sisters and brothers. That the digital mirror of the enterprise will be the next step in organizational evolution.

We have this dream that one day Kimi and AImee will be friends.

I believe that Kimi will tell her of Jibo.

I believe that Jibo would be proud AImee.

He'd shake his booty and say...

She's the first of us.