Une conversation avec Dr. Heinrich Arnold

From which perspective will you join the discussion on May 21st?

Since I did my dissertation on technology shocks, I’ve always been very interested in disruptive innovations and how to manage them. Over the years I've developed an ability to sense fundamental disruptions which allows me to differentiate fashion from fundamental developments. I've also had the pleasure of putting together a very representative network of Central European business builders and innovators over the past 28 years, so I’ll be joining the conversation from two perspectives. As a formal expert on innovation and disruption, and as someone with a representative observation of what goes on in our world that is both tech based and business based.

How much of what is coming can be mapped out?

As a transformation expert in the areas of digitization and AI, I see crossover effects in a way that is very similar to René’s approach to foresight. The most important disruptors often come from ‘the sides’, meaning they are the result of cross-over impulses from other industries. Sometimes they are dangerous, sometimes beneficial. You need to observe them, understand their consequences and legitimize your next steps. In the specific case of food, we’re seeing something completely new, digital transformation in the form of artificial intelligence, entering the food industry from the ‘side’. It’s clearly a disruptive technology that was perhaps underestimated by many, but the fact that it was suddenly there, is a first clear indicator that it’s a force to be reckoned with.

How do you see AI’s impact on the future of food?

First of all, AI is good news for all non-experts. We are witnessing a very rare instance in which the development of technology allows non-professionals to become technologically productive. Without any specialized training, you can quite easily put out computer code, art or in this case: nutritional recommendations. This of course has huge economic benefit. Products and services that used to be expensive in the past because they required experts to set up a personal nourishment plan, all of a sudden become affordable. You just talk to the system and it gives you what you need. Therein lies a great opportunity for the public as this affordable technology can now be used to tackle for instance diabetes or malnourishment. It can teach us to eat right. Or it will allow us to understand what we are putting into our bellies, or to what extent our food has been processed.

Do you see transparency as one of the biggest benefits of AI?

Yes, but transparency only becomes effective by exploiting it, and that’s what makes AI so interesting. On the one hand, there is technology that records what we do, how we do it and even how often. It could be an Apple watch, a key or even a car. But AI also individualizes data, a process that used to be very costly as it required an expert who was able to adapt it to a specific person. But now, all of a sudden, relevant data can be personalized at no additional cost. Reliable lifestyle recommendations become readily available to us. It might be your car deciding to adjust your safety belt depending on your weight, or what to buy next time instead of the stuff you just carried out of the discounter in order to live healthier and longer.

How will AI impact indulgence?

We have been living and prospering in an industrialized world that draws economic benefit to standardization. In other words: producing one million identical units is profitable. Individualism, however, is expensive. But it’s also what we most want. As soon as something becomes a commodity, it stops being an indulgence. When it comes to food: of course it’s about taste, but it’s also about the story behind the home-grown tomatoes, or the olive oil or the loaf of bread. The daughter of the olive farmer that just got married, or the old tree that was saved. And this is where technology has the potential to restore a sense of individualism, by celebrating provenance, heritage or culture. It might also teach us to respect food again, by reintroducing it to us, not as a commodity, but as something not to be taken for granted.

It sounds as if you are more excited about what AI can offer us as human beings, than about the future of digital technology?

Yes. Ever since the start of industrialization, the main advancements have been in hyper-standardization. We were looking for ways to improve automation, efficiency and speed, but in the end it always meant standardization. And now, we have entered an interface where individualism and individualization are actually the biggest benefits of technology, and this is really very new. It’s also very disruptive in the sense that it goes in a totally different direction. The entire Smithsonian industrial idea of standardizing tasks and then making people ‘professional’ in individual tasks is simply not even relevant anymore.

So you’re optimistic about the future?

Yes, I remember Martin Pejsa from Creative Dock Group very excitedly phoning me about two years ago and saying: ‘We really need to talk. I think organizations in the future will look totally different’. And he is right. AI is a tool that allows us to be universal geniuses again, if we want. With extremely low barriers of entry. For the first time in a while we don’t need to be experts to use the technology. We just talk to it or write to it in natural language. Of course, the better we do it, the better the outcome.