The Last Word

I suspect that it may have been one of the most momentous telephone calls of recent decades. Someone in Iran who knew the movements of the very top leadership of the country called or texted their handler in Israel and informed them that the Supreme Leader and several of his top officials were meeting in Tehran. The decision was taken to act on the information. At some point the US was informed. At some later point, the US decided to become involved in what has come to be known as the Iran War¹ (Marco Rubio said “We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”) Presumably there was a pre-existing list of targets in Iran and the bombing quickly started (unfortunately one of them turned out to have been part of an army base that had been turned into a school for girls, and which was obliterated by Tomahawk missiles, killing around 170).

It’s clear that AI will change everything, as mentioned in last month’s ‘Last Word.’ In the cement industry, it’s likely that fewer workers will be required, and that they will be doing different jobs - essentially supervising the AIs that are doing the work. In this issue’s article on the Cemex Miami plant, we can already see this trend underway. If you are not already adept at using AI to boost your own productivity, then it might be time to look into it (or into a career change to something that can’t be done by AI, like ballet dancer or professional football player).

Bill Gates - can we still mention him? - has previously said, “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next 10.” Well, here’s my strong forecasts for the next 10 years:

In my last Last Word, I cast shade on AI due to the fact that it is unable to make a cup of tea. However, the burgeoning field of ‘Physical AI’ means that I was already behind the times. It turns out that making tea is probably the least of the tasks that AI will be able to accomplish in the real world.

I remember seeing a gentleman from the IBM Institute give a presentation at one of our events about 10 years ago. He said that his technology could drive a cement plant better than the best central control room (CCR) operator could do on the best hour of their best day of the year, but that the technology could do it 24/7/365. The technology would never be tired, would never be hung-over, would never be worried about its divorce or mending the fence that got blown down in the storm last month. Using ‘knowledge capture’ (training of the technology by experienced operators), the company could avoid ‘knowledge leakage’ (loss of experience through retirement or death). You could ask the technology to optimise for fuel price, or cement strength, or CO₂ emissions, or specific electrical energy consumption, or a combination of factors. Why wouldn’t you use that technology?! He was, of course, talking about relatively early AI, but things have moved on since then.