Latest news with #Einstein
Forbes
a day ago
- Business
- Forbes
Why Systems Of Execution Offer The Highest Potential Return From AI
Why Systems of Execution Offer the Highest Potential Return from AI What if the true value of AI lies not in incremental improvement, but in bold reinvention? Two and a half years since ChatGPT's commercial debut, enterprises have charged ahead with AI implementations. We've seen rapid adoption, particularly in areas like customer service, marketing, and sales. These functions have embraced AI tools to automate responses, personalize content, and augment human activity. But despite the enthusiasm and activity, most of these efforts have failed to deliver a material step-change in productivity. The reason? We are using AI to optimize what already exists rather than to reinvent how work gets done. Contact centers are filled with conversational bots. Marketing departments deploy AI to fine-tune campaigns and generate content at speed. In sales, platforms like Salesforce's Einstein now layer predictive analytics on top of traditional CRM systems to improve lead prioritization and forecast accuracy. Similarly, vendors are enhancing their software by embedding AI directly into their offerings or providing AI layers that sit on top of existing workflows. In each case, the result is a smarter, more efficient version of the current system. These are clear wins, and enterprises should continue to pursue them. But let's be honest, they are not transformational. The real potential of AI lies in disrupting, not extending, how we operate. To realize this, companies must be willing to rethink their core processes. This is where the notion of Systems of Execution becomes essential. Historically, enterprise technology has been organized around two categories. First, we had Systems of Record, databases like ERP, CRM, and claims systems that emerged during the Internet era to store and manage information. Next came Systems of Engagement, web interfaces and portals that facilitated interaction between users and these data repositories. Both types of systems remain essential, but they are fundamentally reactive. They rely on humans to interpret data and take action. They are built to support decision-making, not to drive it. Systems of Execution represent a third architectural layer. These are intelligent systems that don't just house data or provide access to it, they actually execute work. They ingest information from both Systems of Record and Systems of Engagement, and then use AI agents to drive processes forward with limited human intervention. To build a System of Execution, we must begin not with the tools, but with a top-down reimagining of the process. This is not about improving how humans currently perform a task. It's about asking: If AI were at the center of this process, how would we design it from scratch? At this point, most Systems of Execution are hybrid in nature. They combine AI agents and human workers. But as the technology matures, the human component will shrink while the AI footprint expands. This transition promises not only significant cost efficiencies, but entirely new levels of speed, consistency, and accuracy. Too often, enterprises confuse improvement with transformation. To avoid this trap, we must start by clearly categorizing our AI initiatives. Are we enhancing an existing system? Are we layering AI onto a current stack? Or are we attempting to create a new system that fundamentally changes how work is done? Many proof-of-concept projects fail not because the technology doesn't work, but because the level of investment required to overcome data debt and system complexity is vastly underestimated. By explicitly framing the nature of the change, we can allocate resources more effectively and build toward meaningful returns. Employees are already using AI. Whether through sanctioned tools or unsanctioned experimentation, they are applying AI to streamline work and improve outcomes. Leaders should stop trying to contain this behavior and instead find ways to guide and amplify it. That means offering structured training, curating approved toolkits, and putting lightweight governance in place. We've seen this before with the adoption of personal computers, the spreadsheet, and the public internet. Each of those technologies was initially disruptive, but over time they became foundational. AI will follow the same path. The relevant question is not 'Does this AI tool work?' The better question is 'Is the juice worth the squeeze?' Enterprises must assess whether the investment of time, money, and effort justifies the outcomes. When enhancing legacy systems, the return will often be marginal. When building a new System of Execution, the return can be exponential. This is not a theoretical exercise. It is a strategic imperative. AI is no longer a future-state capability. It is an immediate force reshaping how we think about productivity, process, and value. Systems of Execution represent a new order of things. As Machiavelli famously observed, there is nothing more difficult or dangerous than introducing a new order of things. It is fraught with resistance, uncertainty, and risk. But it also offers unmatched potential. Enhancing what we already have will take us only so far. To lead in the AI era, enterprises must build the systems of tomorrow, systems that do, not just support. This is where the real return lies.
Irish Times
a day ago
- Science
- Irish Times
Embracing infinity: could surreal numbers shape the future of physics?
Imagine Earth were to shrink to the size of a marble. We might be in trouble, but the planet would continue its smooth course around the sun while the moon would maintain its orbit, circling Earth once a month. Isaac Newton proved Earth's gravitational pull would be the same even if all the mass were concentrated in a single point. But the density at that point would be infinite, a condition physicists and mathematicians call a singularity. Such singularities are found in black holes, stars that have collapsed under their own weight. According to general relativity, mass concentrations curve space-time, inducing the force of gravity. With enough matter in a small enough volume, gravity becomes infinitely strong. In 1916, just months after Albert Einstein's general relativity appeared, Karl Schwarzschild discovered a solution of the equations with a singularity. Decades later, this idea led to the theory of black holes, crushed stars with spherical boundaries that trap anything falling inside, including light rays. READ MORE There is now abundant evidence that black holes exist, but do they really represent space-time singularities? Most physicists believe the singularities are mathematical artefacts, and would vanish in a more fundamental theory incorporating quantum effects. Physical equations enable us to predict the future, but singularities imply a lack of predictability; theory just breaks down. It was hoped that quantum effects would eliminate infinities, but current versions of quantum gravity are plagued with singularities. It seems that infinite quantities are inherent and unavoidable. [ Beyond the big bang: Irishman's universal evolution theory challenges accepted cosmology Opens in new window ] German physicist Hermann Weyl opened his essay, Levels of Infinity, with the statement 'mathematics is the science of the infinite'. Infinity is at the core of mathematics. We can gain a first impression of it by placing all the counting numbers, 1, 2, 3 ... in a row stretching towards the right without end. Including the negative integers extends the row to the left. But there are gaps in the row, crying out to be filled. We can insert an infinity of fractions between any two whole numbers but, while the gaps become ever-smaller, their number grows without limit: they never go away. Towards the end of the 19th century, two mathematicians, Richard Dedekind and Georg Cantor, found ways to define quantities known as real numbers, filling all the gaps and producing a mathematical continuum. But this may or may not correspond to the points on a physical line; we have no way of knowing whether we have too few or too many numbers for these points. Cantor proved many startling results. There is not just one infinity, but an entire hierarchy of transfinite quantities, increasing without limit. Around 1970, John Conway discovered an entirely new way of defining numbers, which includes all the familiar numbers, all Cantor's transfinite numbers and a breathlessly vast universe of new numbers, both infinitely large and infinitesimally small. These are the surreal numbers. [ Likely site of new 'gas giant' planet found by research team led by Galway scientists Opens in new window ] So far, the surreal numbers have not been used in physical theories. But this is typical; new mathematical developments often find applications only years or decades after their discovery. Given that fundamental physical theories involve singularities, and infinite quantities are natural elements of the surreal numbers, these exotic numbers may prove valuable in future theories of quantum gravity. Perhaps physicists should embrace infinity rather than trying to banish it from their theories. Peter Lynch is emeritus professor at the School of Mathematics & Statistics, University College Dublin. He blogs at
Irish Independent
2 days ago
- Science
- Irish Independent
Irish researcher joins €1.7bn hunt for Einstein's ‘ripples in space-time'
This work is part of the European Space Agency's €1.74bn Lisa (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) mission to deploy the first gravitational wave detector in space to detect the ripples. Gravitational waves have opened up a new way of observing the universe, according to said Barry Wardell, associate professor of mathematics and statistics at UCD. Prof Wardell has been awarded a €2.5m Advanced European Research Council Grant to study gravitational waves within the Lisa mission. Until recently, scientists' understanding of the universe came mostly from light – in its visible, radio or X-ray forms. The problem with relying on this, according to Prof Wardell, is that light cannot access all regions of space, especially near black holes, or the moments right after the Big Bang. 'Gravitational waves, by contrast, travel virtually untouched across the cosmos, carrying information about the most extreme, energetic events in existence,' he said. 'This lets us peer into environments we could never reach with telescopes alone.' By operating in space, the Lisa detector will be far away from all possible interfering 'noise' on Earth. 'We will be able to 'hear' signals from some of the most extreme events in the cosmos, including black holes the size of our Sun spiralling into supermassive black holes millions of times larger,' Prof Wardell said. For almost 100 years, scientists could only assume that gravitational waves existed, without having observed them directly, relying on Einstein's theories. They were first detected in 2015 in a dramatic discovery that led to the three researchers responsible together receiving the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. ADVERTISEMENT Learn more Studying gravitational waves can help scientists answer questions like how galaxies and black holes form and develop over time. Prof Wardell will be working as part of an international network of scientists. 'What was the universe like in its earliest moments, before light could even travel freely?' he said. 'Gravitational waves are like messengers from those inaccessible corners of time and space.' Getting answers is a highly complex challenge that requires the use of advanced mathematics, supercomputers, and AI. 'While Einstein's predictions have held up for over a century, we've never been able to probe them in environments like merging black holes before,' Prof Wardell said. 'Gravitational wave detections could eventually reveal where his theory breaks down, pointing us toward new physics that might unify gravity with quantum mechanics – one of the biggest unsolved problems in science.' Yet how is all this relevant to our earthbound lives? 'Gravitational waves might sound far removed from everyday life,' Prof Wardell said. 'But even for ordinary people, they matter more than it first seems. 'This is a story of curiosity: our drive to understand where we come from, how the universe works, and what fundamental forces shape our reality.'
Spectator
2 days ago
- General
- Spectator
Why must B&B guests give us advice?
'You could mow all this lawn here and it would look a treat,' said the arborist, returning from a stroll around the grounds, which were looking resplendent in the sunshine. 'Yes, yes, mow the grass. Good idea,' I said, for the builder boyfriend has told me I have to agree with the customers. No matter what they say, no matter how obvious their suggestions, just smile and say 'Good idea.' Old houses are like horses. Passing strangers feel ownership of them. Once they encounter them, they proclaim how they would care for them, because they decide from their soulful look that the owners must be neglecting them – when the truth is the owners slave day and night for them, getting nothing but a good kicking for their trouble. So I had to bite my lip as this latest guest, from Wales, informed me that the lawns needed mowing. 'Believe it or not, this is one week's growth,' I said. 'Ireland, you see. Rain and sun. Rain and sun.' 'How much land you got here?' he asked. 'Only seven and a half acres,' I said, 'and the horses graze most of it…' 'You wanna get yourself some goats,' he said, standing with his hands behind his back in front of the multicoloured hedgerows. The gardens were a blaze of exotic colour too, sloping away to two hilly fields where the four horses were grazing. It was a little picky to look at this sumptuous scene and point out the lack of goats as an issue. 'Goats yes, good idea,' I said. 'We did think about goats, to eat the nettles.' 'And you wanna put some yurts in. A big yurt in that circular garden there where you've got the bench. You don't want a bench. You want a yurt. People pay good money for a yurt.' 'Yurts, yes, good idea,' I said. 'We did think about yurts. Only he's got quite a lot on, what with renovating an eight-bedroom house and two coach houses…' 'And cut back all this lot here,' pointing to my favourite tree. I said: 'That's a Chilean lantern tree.' 'Yes, cut all that back. You wanna get yourself some machinery.' I told the BB and he said I should ignore it. Then the Welshman cornered him over breakfast and I could hear the BB saying 'Good idea' over and over. I knew what was coming. He waits until they've gone. The arborist left on Sunday morning. Sunday, as it happens, is the BB's day for mowing the grounds. With the guests gone, he got cracking with his enormous mower and had the acres of formal gardens looking manicured again in no time. When he finished, he stripped off for a shower in the downstairs bathroom and stood in the altogether shouting, in his best cockney ranting voice: 'I tell you what eh. Thank God that Welsh fella came. His suggestion of cutting the grass has made an amazing difference. I kept wondering what that red machine was in the middle of the barn! You must send him a message and thank him.' I could hear him ranting away to himself as he had his shower. 'A right Einstein he was. He knows what he's talking about. He should take over running the place. 'I mean, he's been here a night. He knows everything about it…' And he veered into volleys of expletives, as colourful as the abundant gardens. The builder b enjoys it. I don't. I hear myself making low growling noises. The arborist's girlfriend told me I should charge more. 'That room was amazing,' she said over breakfast. 'The shower was lush. The house is gorgeous. Look at this message I just sent my friend: 'Stayin' in the most amazin' Georgian country house. I feel like Jane Austen. You never seen anythin' like it!' That's what I said to my friend, that is. Why you charging so little?' 'Because you won't pay,' I growled very quietly, as she sliced the butter block almost in half and pulverised it skilfully on to a single piece of toast. 'People want a lot for their money,' I said out loud. The man from Hawaii also informed me I should be charging more. And he said it so often that in the end I told him he was right. The prices were going up. Whereupon he inserted this caveat to his suggested pricing regime. He wanted to book the best room in the house for another two nights, because he liked it so much, and he wondered if he could pay me a bit less, for cash. 'Maybe,' I growled. He said the only thing was, he was out of euros and he didn't want to incur the exchange rate or have the bother of going to the post office in the village, so would I take dollars? 'What?' I shouted. 'Everyone loves dollars,' he said. 'You can spend them when you visit the States.' 'Listen here,' I said, for he and I had struck up a good rapport. 'You've gone from telling me to put my prices up to you don't want to pay me what I'm currently charging to offering me dollars when I'm about as likely to get a trip to America as hell freezing over, so that's the equivalent of not paying me at all. I'm never going to Florida, or New York, or Hawaii. I'm stuck here trying to run a West Cork B&B with customers demanding marble minibars and gold tea bags for €60 a night, and haggling me down while telling me I should put my prices up.' 'Hey it was just an idea,' he said. 'I'll book it online. You can send me a special offer, right?'
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Business Standard
2 days ago
- Science
- Business Standard
India cracks quantum code: Unhackable communication is here! IIT Delhi
Indian scientists have made a major breakthrough in unhackable communication. The tech uses quantum code, a phenomenon even Einstein called 'spooky action at a distance.' Watch the video to know all about it.
