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CST came up with the App of Apps a while back - long before AI came along. One App with a central database to control all other apps.
This new i-Browser idea evolves from this – The i-Browser… which stands for the Intelligent Browser. It has global possibilities for significant future efficiency improvement across all businesses.
Why a browser? Simply because all businesses of every size are already familiar with how to use one. There is no point in complicating the interface - in fact - the whole point of this idea is to bring ever changing AI functions – all of them, now and in the future, to the whole business community.
This is a leap like the original spreadsheet was. It is the 'killer application' that will drive AI into mass business use. It provides a path into the future for achieving massive impact from the evolving AI systems.
Currently, to harness AI - especially for the many smaller businesses across the world - is tricky. This is because there are now, already, too many specific applications and very many businesses offering specific functionality to help solve specific business issues. This, coupled to the fact that AI is undergoing immense change, week on week, it has become difficult, if not impossible, for businesses to find a clear investment path for AI integration within their businesses.
The i-Browser creates this path seamlessly, with little if any investment. More than that, the i-Browser provides a very simple interface for all businesses to try AI withint their workplace. One of the current issues is that many businesses do not try AI because it is not perfect. So they do not get any improvement from the areas, although not perfect, that can help their business efficiency now. The easier it is for businesses to engage with AI - in whatever way - then the sooner businesses will establish what AI can, or cannot, achieve for them. As the AIs improve these businesses will achieve more efficiencies.
A core design concept for this new i-Browser is that it is powered by a central database that holds all personal or business information. But not just business data, this new browser links ‘all data sets’. This encompasses all the data sets that are available to a business – both internal and external.
These internal data sets can include all business data such as; accounts, purchases, customers, sales, potential customers, websites, sales material, employee data, meeting notes, projects, plus any other data that is deemed to be relevant.
The external dataset includes everything accessible via the internet plus specific data sets such as, say marketing data sets, or competitor analysis, industry reports, technical innovations, some of these may be via subscription to meet business specific requirements.
The point here is that the output of this new i-Browser is only as good as the raw data that the business provides. The better and more comprehensive the data is, the better the i-Browser will output useful assistance to the business.
So, what about the AI interface? This is of course the key to creating massive increases in business efficiency. And, not just for one business, but as we shall see for very many.
Significantly, the ubiquitous browser is a very well understood and simple multimedia interface. And browsers have been around and perfected for over 30 years now. This provides for instant comprehension and ease of use across all the world’s businesses that have more than a few employed people. For western economies, there are probably only a very small percentage of businesses that have not already mastered the browser interface.
For this new i-Browser the AIs sit behind the browser. All input is handled and proscribed by the AIs. For the user, the browser interface simply offers the well known search window and if required, as now, the ability to speak to the browser. The AIs are hidden away, they do not impact the look or feel of the browser interface. This provides AI functionality without any special user training. As such the take up of this completely new technology is seamless, there few, if any, hurdles for any business to overcome to use the immense power of the ever changing AI frontier that the large AI businesses now offer us. Gone is the need to worry about specific applications, or specific integration within any business, however large or small.
The difficult parts – the AI integration and the integration with business data and with business functions (from the simple spreadsheet to complex ERP systems), are all handled by the i-Browser, its design and the provider of this new technology.
Why do we refer to AIs in plural?
A key issue with all current AI’s is that they make mistakes or get confused. The idea here is to have built-in checks across a number of AI’s. Ideally, this whole project could be achieved as a collaboration of the main AI businesses – Ha, best of luck with that - but it would make perfect sense as this idea creates a massive leap forward for businesses – all of them – see why later.
Such an AI Browser would be able to steadily increase the complexity of tasks undertaken as the AI’s improve their functionality and hopefully move towards the holy-grail of AGI.
The overall design of the i-Browser allows it to become an intelligent virtual assistant. Ask or type any question or ask for a required action or output and the browser will do the rest. If it fails, it should tell you why it cannot complete the task. Adding other 'components' to the i-Browser’s interface allows more 'tasks' to be performed. These tasks can be 'saved' for repeated use.
Every business can start slowly with low functionality and simple outputs. This provides a seamless path to harnessing AI within every business. As the business finds efficiencies, it can increase functionality simply by asking more complex questions. If, as will happen, the AIs fail in the task, the business can drop back into those outputs that they find useful and efficient. As the AI’s powering the AI Browser improves, all businesses can instantly apply this new power within their business.
The design should include a simple way of adding functionality to the input or output of the i-Browser. This can work, yet again, just like browser technology allows now – by connecting specific plug-ins to the i-Browser. These plug-ins can be as simple as specific data feeds, e.g. news feeds, or as complex as a complete interface to the business’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
It is likely that while each ERP system is including AI’s within their own programs and user interfaces, they shall be forced to create new open-source interfaces as the i-Browser gains traction. However complex an ERP system is, it will never match the range of functions or indeed ‘intelligence’ of the i-Browser approach. This is because the i-Browser will inherently be able to talk to each other – and this is fundamental to the future efficiency of all businesses, both large and small, across all industry sectors. This has been the holy-grail of integration for over 50 years.
Companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon already have ‘back-end’ world-wide systems with all the required database and distributive functionally necessary to drive this technology. These are secure, online, tried and tested products. It is a little surprising that Google has not already rolled out at least a prototype of similar i-Browser functionality. Yes, it has integrated its current AI, but there is no linked business database or integration with a wide range of output functions.
With impending anti-trust legislation being aimed at the largest US tech businesses, it would be a good time for Google to support a wider, perhaps open-collaboration system and work alongside other AI businesses to provide an open-source platform for all the world’s businesses – as the payoff for the human race here is enormous. The last thing we need is to muddy the water by having competing and exclusive systems. This is massively important as all such i-Browsers need to talk with one another without any issues or technology getting in the way of progress.
We can see that as the AI progresses, such an i-Browser will be able to undertake many business related tasks. Examples that come to mind with increasing complexity are;
Implementation
The i-Browser provides a common tool for all businesses to use. The i-Browser provider(s) and integrator(s), do the hard work of keeping it updated with current AI capabilities and functionality. Any business can then just plug their data into the i-Browser system to help them solve ever more complex tasks. This is especially important for smaller businesses as their people need to multitask and they do not have access to the skills-set required to integrate AI's cost effectively to each of their business processes.
The existing business systems such as accounting, stock, purchase processing, sign-off, company documentation may require intermediate systems to allow full access for the i-Browser's interface. These will become generally available for standard products such as specific accounting systems as the i-Browser becomes the standard approach.
Payment / Banking interfaces can also be created, clearly the security level and checks and balances will need to be in place to ensure good security against misuse or inadvertent errors. Interfaces to general business tools such as spreadsheets, document creation and external media such as YouTube, LinkedIn or social media will be part of the standard i-Browser via the many third-party plug-ins.
Data Security
This idea does of course pose significant issues with data ownership and security - CST sees a time when the usefulness of such a system overcomes these concerns - as staying competitive will be the key issue and drive the change. However, there needs to be a highly secure data system with well understood parameters for use by everyone concerned.
Ever Improving Efficiency - Seamlessly
An additional level of usefulness automatically occurs as many businesses start using such a tool across their businesses. Initially, as each individual user’s input becomes significant, the AI systems behind the i-Browser can learn from each user better ways of doing specific business operations and add useful output information to the business’s own internal data set. Also, the AIs behind the i-Browser will be able to use this additional ‘learning’ to improve other users' output.
Importantly, yet another level of very useful business functionality occur when there are many businesses using the i-Browser integrated into their business processes. One of the key issues in running any business efficiency is the cost of communications between businesses. Even if one business is using high level well integrated processes (such as automatic purchasing and payments), the other supplier businesses will often have low efficiency systems to manage their response.
With businesses using integrated i-Browser’s there becomes a high level link between each business. This means that one business can seamlessly communicate across many issues and levels with the other business. Soon after take-up of this new technology, it will become clear that many businesses will expect their suppliers, customers and intermediaries to be using the same technology, thus allowing growing integration between organisations - seamlessly.
Let’s consider this wider business to business integration further as it creates a massive increase in general business efficiency, (and of course staff level reduction). This integration occurs almost naturally, yet it provides a quantum leap in efficiency - for all businesses, and it will become the driving force for the next ten years, at least, across most economies. Yes, really.
Example; A business requires a new product. Their i-Browser is tasked with finding suitable suppliers, to review the final choice, and subsequently to review the effectiveness of the new supplier in terms of cost, delivery and quality.
A discussion between the original businesses with potential supplier businesses, via their i-Browsers, would be seamless without any human intervention.
The i-Browser would arrive at the best answer of finding the most relevant supplier and be able to monitor the effectiveness of the new supplier.
The cost savings across similar administration tasks across many businesses would grow into world changing improvement, elevating business efficiency perhaps by one hundred percent, or more. As more and more complex tasks can be accomplished due to progress in the core AI abilities, the ability of this human-free integration and communication between businesses will continue to improve all business efficiency.
There is also an interesting aside here for AI progression in general. There is currently an open research question of whether the interaction of a physical robot with the real world will provide feedback into providing an improving understanding for the AI.
There is some considered thinking from AI scientists, that such real-world interaction will move the ‘intelligence’ of the current type of AIs towards AGI. However, creating a safe environment for a physical robot is expensive and very difficult to achieve, especially with wide real-world integration allowing the AI to learn safely in many different real-world environments.
The i-Browser allows an intermediary step for this research. The real world can indeed be accessed, but due to the physical limitations of the i-Browser they have much lower risk implications, especially for physical interaction of humans with robotic systems and heavy machinery. The i-Browser can act as a test-bed for the efficacy of this feedback route to increase AI abilities..
Once implemented, we shall soon find out whether the AI's 'learn' more about the real world when they start doing real stuff like creating and interpreting a spreadsheet and dealing with business accounts and progressing detailed business issues. Will they start to interpret real stuff differently with this feedback loop? This important issue is an automatic output of this proposed new system.
If interaction with the real world does help the AI systems to become more aligned to real world issues, this i-Browser provides a powerful new path for the current AI businesses to provide wide access to real world issues.
CST’s future view is that we are heading towards the ‘smart robot’. This i-Browser is an intermediate stage, using an intelligent interface it will significantly enhance the path for robots to finally reach the ‘smart robot’ stage.
The potential improvements to the AI’s for real-world interpretation from the wide application of the i-Browser may well hold the secret to moving successfully towards this end. When finally, the smart robot is linked to AGI, and the ‘smart robots’ start building new smart robots - the human race takes a leap into a new era, both physically and politically.
Any takers for this idea? Google et al?
CST
The Intelligent Browser
This new simple tech idea has world-wide possibilities for massive future efficiency gains - for all businesses.
A True Break-through Technology For All Mankind