Four For Friday | June 2, 2023
LF53 | 101 on generative AI, Australia and Canadian lack of competitiveness, reducing wait list times and Baby Bust.
Welcome to a Looking Forward’s Four For Friday. Four things that have piqued my interest this week relating to systems change, healthy longevity and / or Web3. Enjoy!
McKinsey’s CEO primer on generative AI
This is a good overview of the background to generative AI and some of the applications and implications for general businesses.
Canada and Australia share many things, including uncompetitiveness
The Economist points out remarkable similarities between Canada and Australia - large, sparsely populated, English speaking, friendly, good at outdoor sports.., But also dominated by monopolies, and with limited international innovation or competitiveness. The OECD average of ‘high tech’ exports is 7% while Australia and Canada have just 2% and 4% respectively. Domestic industries are generally more consolidated than either US or Europe, inward investment barriers are high, patents issued are low and R&D as a percent of GDP is under 2% in both, compared to the OECD average of 2.7%. The magazine points the finger at rich natural resources, relatively light regulatory oversight and limited support to scale up innovations. Lots of points to discuss for the innovation groups in both countries.
Systems modelling reduces NHS waiting lists
Looking for real world benefits of systems modelling? How about saving lives? Waitlists in the UK NHS have been growing as the service suffers from underfunding, poor management and the pandemic, and a health system in the East of England was able to lower waitlists by using systems modelling to map out the process flows and provide interventions, such as triage models at key bottlenecks, to reduce system overload. This is an example of what they built - I wonder if other health providers would benefit from something similar?
Baby Bust
Another punchy article from The Economist - noting the major issues with the lack of fertility leading to declining populations, a lower tax base and (explained in a separate article) lower innovation rates. The piece notes that by 2030 more than half the population of East and South-East Asia will be over 40, and declining populations are a global phenomenon:
In 2000 the world’s fertility rate was 2.7 births per woman, comfortably above the “replacement rate” of 2.1, at which a population is stable. Today it is 2.3 and falling. The largest 15 countries by GDP all have a fertility rate below the replacement rate.
The article suggests that innovations such as AI may ride to the rescue - delivering uptick in productivity and innovation. Let’s make that happen!
That’s all for this week. As always, feedback welcome. Feel free to share insights or links of interest.
- Stephen