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In 2060 AR/VR Artificial Intelligence Autonomous Agents Bioengineering Drone Fleet Management Hologram Holographic Display Information Technology Storytelling Technology Transportation Drone Writing

Bioengineering in 2060

“Nasir, check this out. Didn’t I tell you PSG would win against New Manchester? Two bitcoins, baby. Who is the soccer king?”

“Stop bragging, man. Gee, I don’t know how you do it. Hey, Betmania, tell me how this regular human with his XXL ears looking like satellite dishes can beat your prediction. Thank God, you were a freebie AI.”

The bet bot replied, “I am not qualified to review Dr Anoli’s performances. Yet, his 97.26% accuracy is…”

Nasir interrupted the hologram: “Ahh, shut it! It was a rhetorical question. My man! You are good, you gooood.”

He lifted his hand, nodding repetitively to perform his most vigorous handshake.

The upper deck lit up like a lighthouse, and then a deafening sound followed the illumination.
Beeeeeepp. “Emergency. Purple alert. All medical engineers on deck. I repeat, Purple Alert. All medical engineers on deck. This is not a drill.”

My heart was pounding. The message was still resonating in my head.

The sudden drop in temperature, produced by the arch-reactor of the medical drone transporter, announced the arrival of an unusual patient. This is the first time I have seen a flying one. Usually, these vehicles were stored in the Corps of Peacekeepers‘ R&D facilities.

The temperature drop caused a fog to rise like a curtain. I saw a blurry figure approaching slowly.

My colleague interrupted my stupor: “I haven’t seen a purple alert for 7 years now, it’s serious. Purple means death.”

The flying ambulance emerged at the heliport located at the center of the critical emergency service. Work is pretty easy on platform seventeen, actually. Nowadays, bioengineering is solving almost all critical injuries as they occur. An accident at a construction site? Any multifunction robot worker medic cauterizes your wound with accelerated healing enzymes, bypassing block surgery. As long as you’ve subscribed to the right medical service, the AI health model can be downloaded, and the tier two healing kit purchased for printing.

“What on earth could have happened?”, exclaimed Nasir.

The hologram of the AI diagnostician, Dr. Ernesto, popped up from the ambient hospital Phygital network while the paramedics were transporting the patient out of the medical drone transporter. Then, she said:

“This is unprecedented, we are losing it. We’ve tried traditional medicine and printed the generic assistance bacteria. Nothing works. The patient’s vitals fluctuate over time at an unconventional rate. Scanning the available knowledge from the current corpus does not provide any satisfying answers. The highest probable disease is the Genova IV virus with a probability of 31%”.

I replied “Too much uncertainty… What do you suggest, Nasir?”

“It looks like the emerging meta-virus. The… guy on B-Hacker YouTube Entertainment System… Sorry, I can’t remember the name of that journalist… said it was an open-source public CASPRed experiment.”

I could not believe it at first. But when I saw his wound mutating in front of me, there was no doubt that the potential disease was human-made.

“Arrrghhhhh. It burns… Please get it off me. I am begging you. Just cut it!” shouted the patient.

I was stunned. I cannot remember the last time I saw a real person suffering that much. Dr. Krovariv told me about it. This was surreal. So much pain.

“Hey! Gather yourself, buddy. There’s no time to waste. We might be facing a level 5 threat here,” said Nasir.

He was such a great guy. He was the embodiment of coolness. Not only was he a great bioengineer, but he always kept his cool on the field. I was more of a lab genius. I wish I could be more like him.

“Huh, yeah. Sorry, I froze,” I said with a coating of stupor, disappointment, and anger. I continued without hesitation, “What’s the status?”

While he was unplugging the portable bio-scanner from the trembling body, Nasir replied: “Body temperature 39.9. Heartbeats – 137. Adrenaline level 50.5. Oxygen level 92.12%. Stress level is increasing by 2.4% per minute. If we don’t act quickly, he is going to have a seizure. The stem cell differentiation rate… 272%! This is too high. It looks like he is growing a supernumerary limb, but I don’t know what kind.”

“Pick up the nano-extractors and verify traces of xeno-mRNA.”
It was a Sanofi Nano-extractors SNX43, a state-of-the-art fleet of nano-medical machines with a portable management system. Current extractors were all managed centrally by the hospital drone intervention unit.

I quickly put my face next to the patient’s ear and asked, “Sir, I am going to need your authorization to perform an intracellular analysis. We don’t know what you have, this might be your last chance…”

He grabbed my head and screamed, “What the hell are you asking for? Do it! Arghhhh!”

I felt foolish. Yet, there was no way I could bypass the authorization because the device had a legal lock encoded in it.

“That will do,” I whispered. The nano-extractors became operational, switching from blue ‘stand by’ to green ‘proceed.’ The extractors looked like a stick, no longer than a large pen. I placed it next to the wound, and it opened, deploying four branches on each side, and anchoring onto his skin. I heard a sequence of small noises, like pistons. The extractor fleet deployed into his body.

Then a ballet of lights came up. The SNX43 beamed a 3D representation of the arm’s inner part. The system rendered the location of the fleet in real-time.

They moved surprisingly slowly. I was disappointed. I was used to contemplating much livelier robots with the previous version.

Nasir said deductively: “There’s something wrong. They appear to be sucked in or blocked. Zoom in, Nicolas”.

I pinched out the holo-display to enter the zoom command and tapped on the max button. The illusion of slowness came from the fact that the machines were moving at such a speed that it was hard to follow with the naked eye. They looked like bees on steroids, fighting a wall of flesh. But the alien cells rebuilt the wall as soon as it was destroyed.

“I get it; the cellular growth must be faster than the robots can clear the path. It is not good. Not good at all.”

“Have you ever seen something like this before?”

“No…” said Nasir. It was the first time I saw fear in his eyes.

Then he jumped. “It could be contagious. I want all containment units on the platform now. I request a total lockdown of platform seventeen. Now!”

Nasir stopped, then looked at me insistently. I immediately thought something was happening to me.

Then, Nasir froze and fell to the ground.

I jumped immediately to grab him, but something inside me pulled back. My bioengineer spinal safety device prevented me from approaching the new pathogens. Whenever it triggered, it reminded me of the auto-braking mechanisms in my grandparents’ cars. I do not like the idea of having a machine tweaking my neural system. Yet, once more, it saved my life.

“This is not the time,” I whispered. I looked at the sky and said, “Dr. Ernesto. Launch orbital containment in ten. Authorization Kappa-Sigma-Omega-1337.”

Dr. Ernesto answered, “Authorization confirmed. Launching orbital containment in 10, 9, 8…”

“Meanwhile, call the World Health Emergency.”

“Opening channel.”

The dial ended almost instantly.

“Dr. Anoli, this is Dr. Krovariv – replica number 3. State the nature of your emergency.”

“I need to speak to the real Dr. Krovariv. This is a purple priority request.”

“Accepted. Please stand by…”

Time stood still while the platform was flying to space. The quietness of linear magnetic propulsion was staggering. My god. Is Nasir going to make it?

“The patient! I am a monst…”

“Dr. Anoli. What is it about?” Her question interrupted my thoughts.

“Dr. Krovariv. I am sorry, but Nasir has been contaminated by an unknown biological agent. I am heading toward space containment. Furthermore, the patient at the source of the contamination is dying. This agent is too dangerous. Please advise on the protocol,” I finished with a frail voice.

“In this situation, the protocols are clear. Once in space containment, you may use the ‘yellow horizon’ protocol. But you know what will happen if it fails.”

“Yes… I know.”

“I am sorry, son. Since CASPR got open-sourced, we are overwhelmed by these idiots… I am waiting for your decision.”

I had a deep look at Nasir. I knew it would probably be the last time I would see him. It was probably the last time I would see anything else.
I exhaled loudly and said, “Permission to print a new species as a countermeasure.”

“Permission granted. Good luck.”

Asking was the easy part. I was her protégé.

As I was climbing space, the platform changed its path toward a new direction. The Athena Life Engineering Lab, or ALEL, was lighting up like a giant light bulb. It was my dream to one day be worthy of visiting the lab. It was proclaimed as a symbol of hope. But not like this. Not on the verge of my very own death.

ALEL was the only accredited location where humans were allowed to engineer and print new life forms. No one was allowed to penetrate the labs.
Akin to the Athena Orbital Data Centre, it was solely operated by robots and machines following a strict chain of command.

Soon after, the platform slowed down, then stopped near the lab, and the docking system engaged to secure the system. A muffled noise gave me the chills.

“Welcome, Dr. Anoli. My name is Marie Curie. You have been granted the usage of the Athena Life Engineering System by Archdoctor Krovariv of the World Health Organization on the date of 30th December 2060. Any inquiry going against the principles of life and Human Civil Rights will result in your immediate termination. Do you want to hear these principles?”

“No, thank you. I already vowed to fight for life when I became a biomedical engineer.”

“Understood. Please state your prompt, please.”

I thought to myself, “What? Just like that?”

“Marie Curie, I need you to engineer a biological agent to counter Dr. Nasir’s condition. Focus uniquely on alien gene alteration and accelerated growth features. Do not augment the agent with inorganic material. Do not add metamorphic adaptation capabilities. Encode the maximum life duration to be 72 hours. Add automatic degeneration from 70 hours as a failsafe mechanism. No reproduction. No replication. I need you to confirm the supernumerary growth first before proceeding.”

“Supernumerary growth confirmed. Your prompt is acceptable. Proceeding to the registration of the new specimen identified by Anoli-alpha-31122060-001. Beginning prototyping phase.”

As I reached the point of no return, I could not help but wonder if our life would end here. ALEL was a universal robotic womb. What would happen if I asked the Life Factory to… recreate Nasir… Is rebirth possible?


In 2060

Categories
Technology Artificial Intelligence Automation In 2060 Information Technology Robots Writing

AI in 2060

My wife is calling me.

“Honey, we have a situation with Professor GYTEK, he is acting strangely again.”

“Again? The last training session had even more unexpected results than I thought. Good or Bad?”

“I don’t know! Kids are laughing hard though. Hear this. Serenity, change the audio output to hear the kids too”. Serenity is our family AI.

The sound progressively switches to include the kids’ voices. They could not stop laughing as if they were having the best day of their life. There was a mild amplifying echo in their classroom. Their joy sounded like a melody. It immediately put a smile on my face.

“Ah, it does not sound so bad for now. But it is the fourth unexpected behavior this month, I’ll have to talk with the Corps of Teachers”.

I am the one in charge of the training curriculum and observation lab of Professor GYTEK. The current phase is about the transmission of achievement by coaching. And for this, I called Quentin DILLONS, a worldwide expert in Robotic Psychology. The purpose of this program is to trigger a new step in the evolution of artificial intelligence, in which robots are taught to develop “human goals” and to instill the mechanism of “self-started motivation”, so that they can teach in a better way to our children, to uncover the hidden gems and purpose from the young souls.

Quentin’s methodology utilized systematic questionology, a novel field aimed at formulating the right questions to provide direction and precision in one’s life. The techniques take root in observing holistically a system of causes, decisions, and consequences centered around artificial intelligence. Quentin’s study led to realize AI were developing personalities similar to humans, but with new characteristics such as the optimization of their human-to-AI collaboration, some were developing their observation skills to record and describe with high precision what was happening. Others were astonishingly creating new words, even syntactic rules sometimes as if the human languages were not enough to content earthlings’ intelligence. 

The last session was based on the question “Why is it important for humans to have kids growing their special skills?”

This would not have been possible with the latest progress in artificial intelligence and hardware. Nowadays machines are emulating closely some human behaviors. Some say they have the IQ of a 1000-year genius, with the EQ of a 10-year-old child. I believe fear drove us to the point where we enforced the law to control and monitor any significant progress in AI. Ultimately, we made certain that advancements in technology would benefit all of mankind and not solely a single corporation. Simultaneously, we ensured that AI would not pose a threat by enslaving humanity.

With the improvement in energy recycling and storage, a single AI unit could potentially be never turned off. But humans have decided to include multiple “kill switches” in this new species, like limiting the power autonomy to force autonomous machines to recharge. While recharging, each AI was manually verified and monitored. A qualified AI regulation agency published regularly a thorough diagnostic depicting their evolution. Four companies raised their empire on AI control systems. What used to be the “Big 4” are now the “Colossal 8”.

We are at a turning point in history. People ask their elites and government, “Should we remove the limiter in their emotional system?”. Some say it is the key to the singularity. Others say it is useless because we only need machines to assist not to “live their life”. The remaining people say they just need it. Painful loneliness was unnecessary, so they would possess the perfect friend or partner. Last weekend, I experienced an immersive documentary on Netflix VR World in which a 42 years-old Spanish woman said “I would rather have the company of an android than humans”. Some believe it is simply giving birth to our end. I am not a believer, I am and always be a master crafter, so I build.

I built Professor GYTEK. Which stands for Giving Youth Tools to Excel through Knowledge.

Then my wife brings me back from my flash thoughts to reality. “Are you still there?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Oh okay. Well, as wonderful as this situation is, you realize it leads to a dead end, don’t you? They are going to shut down the program. Honey, you know more than I that no one wants to walk a path that would lead to “that Incident”.

“Oh, stop saying “that Incident” like you were talking about Voldemort”.

“Well, now that you are mentioning it. It is all about Serpentar. Ah ah ah!”.

We are both laughing nervously.

The Sync Dawn was the most dreadful event of the 21st century. It felt like a deep wound in the psyche of everyone.

“All right. My dear wife, I need to finish the review of update 5.21. Keep me posted, please. See you tonight.”.

“Bye Bye.”

I sit down glazing at the nothingness while thinking about what is best for both my grandchildren and humanity. Is humanity in a better spot now? Am I really improving our civilization?

“Gather your mind, Yannick. This is not the time for daydreaming. Get back to work to meet your deadline”, resonated Mustapha’s voice in my skull. My AI research assistant is right.

“Very well. GYTEK. Let’s… Uh… Check the emotion mirroring settings, calibrated for a classroom of 11 to 13 years old kids. Assertive factors 12.75. Judgment 87.5 and dynamic mentoring alpha-iota-iota. Imagination… Checked. Keep the default settings. Recursive feedback… Paused. Everything… Looks… Good. Ok, let’s start with…”.

I paused for a second, thoughtfully. I jumped from my chair energetically to say: “History lessons: The Sync Dawn. GYTEK 5.21, do you copy?”.

“Sure. Using the ascending evolution of the OpenAI’s Davinci model Mark XII published in November 2029, the startup Obsidian Intermind created a digital twin of human consciousness.

Soon after, the virtual consciousness infrastructure was upgraded to become connectable, so that off-brain cognition could be mutualized. As a result, humans could gain extra brain power and memory. The increase was dependent on the level of developed intelligence: the more critical thinking, emotional awareness, communication, and memory access you had, the more significant the boost was. The term “supra-intelligence” emerged. However, it was widely criticized as IQ studies were exposing a moderate increase from 0.7% to 14.5% IQ points.

However, this off-brain collective intelligence became exceptionally smart, to the point some said it was a wisdom system. Alternatively, specialized AI cognitive pools came to grow within the wise system, creating public and private cognitive islands. The most popular were the Disease Diagnostic Cognitive Pool (DDCP), and the Creative Cognitive Pool (CCP). Imagination was only limited by the human mind.

 Should I continue?”

“Please proceed, Professor.”

“Sure.

After nearly a decade of research, the collaboration between Neuralink and Obsidian Intermind gave birth to Evernet, the Internet of Cognition. The 14 July 2051 they launched the experimental version of this new kind of network. The principle was simple, 9500 humans would be connected to Evernet for 3 years. Each participant would be closely monitored and evaluated.

This experiment was widely criticized. The rush for the business model “Cognition as a Service” led to the creation of new social-economical movements: the Humanist, Cyber-moderate, and the Neo Mutualist”.

The Humanists fostered biological and spiritual integrity.

Doctrines of Cyber-moderate advocated for augmentation by technology, as long as it served, and I quote their leader, “A noble social purpose”. Alike in any group, Cyber-moderates had extremists. On the left end of the spectrum, their members accepted aesthetic techno-augmentation. On the other side, augmentation was only authorized for damages caused by dangerous jobs and Defence activities. It is not surprising that the Corps of Peacekeepers were mostly Cyber-moderates.

Neo Mutualism was a new religion. Their members believed humanity’s elevation and salvation would come from the mutualization of our consciousness. Transhumanists were schoolboys compared to them».

“GYTEK, just say they are a bunch of zealots.”. I mumbled.

“Yannick, my Critical Bias Thinking settings are set to 0 for kids between 11 and 13. According to the study “Biais Interpretation and Incorporation into Pre-teen Judgment System” by Dr. Amunde, Kallili and Pratt issued the 16 May 2039, the settings should be kept to 0. I reckon a variance of .05 would bring no harm. Do you want me to proceed?”.

“No, it’s fine GYTEK. I was talking to myself. What I meant is…”. I inhale calmly. “They demonstrated characteristics of zealots. Zealot-ish behaviors. Is my sentence acceptable?”

 “It is acceptable.”

“Common, GYTEK, you’re talking to me, your buddy and mentor! Say it!”

“They were a bunch of zealots! “. Said cheerfully the robot.

“Voila! Ok, stop joking around, otherwise grumpy Mustapha won’t be happy. Please continue”.

“I hear you”. Said Mustapha.

“It was on purpose… GYTEK. Please, go on.”

“Despite the widespread and frequent protests of Humanists, the Corps of Ethicists, Peacekeepers, Cognitive Researchers, Medicine, and the Corp of Society Architects approved the experiment. People would be connected to Evernet permanently during the experiment. And so, for the first time in history, humans would be connected to the first worldwide brain.

Everything went as planned. We observed a significant enhancement in each participant. Less stress, faster psychological recovery. Healing was even faster when after a trauma. People were dreaming more often. Furthermore, they all built habits that would improve their lives, as if positive practices spread unconsciously over the network.

The end of the experiment was planned for 16th August 2054. Each human taking part in the experiment would reach the personal milestone “Sync Done“.

Surprisingly, Evernet reached the 100% “Sync Done” milestone six months earlier than the planned end of the experiment. It was like the first landing on Mars, a day of worldwide celebration. The celebrities that took part in the experiment were invited to the most popular live-streaming shows, Twitter Live News and The Sandbox World.

Suddenly, people start noticing something very strange».

I raised my hand instinctively and said: “Pause. The last word is vague. Next time use precise words. The storytelling structure is engaging. Congratulations. But keep in mind this is History telling. Facts before Flares”

“Understood and integrated.”. The AI professor continued without further ado.

“People have experienced an unusual and peculiar situation. Participants in the experiment suddenly started to act and talk synchronously. It was as if the single mind spoke to the entire world by commanding many bodies like a puppet master. The colossal echo caused by the voices was staggering. Only the following abysmal silence of stupor superseded it.”.

I interrupted Professor GYTEK by asking: “From now answer as if a 12-year-old child asked the following question: How this ever happened?”.

“The exact reason is still being explained. However, researchers came to a general agreement before the following theory.

Evernet built not only a digital ai model but also a biological model of neural pathway architecture to optimize shared cognitive power. The human brain is designed to work as if it was alone inside a skull. Thinking about it, Evernet Orbital Data Centre is a gigantic metallic skull. Thus, over time, Evernet act as a single brain – a big brain so to speak – and each synchronized human brain just gave progressively more raw power, more ideas, and more knowledge. And it appears that once the pathway architecture was finally developed and mature in all the connected human brains it activated. What we are still trying to figure out is how and when the Evernet super-model decided to build the optimized pathway and how it encoded it in its new model.”.

“What was revolutionary about Evernet AI super-model?”

“Evernet’s was merely an inspiration of the human brain. The challenge was to find patterns in the structure governing the complex layers of inputs and outputs. The answer was in the order of magnitude and the capacity of robots living in the Orbital Data Centre to physically rewire the hardware like human synapses. In addition, the combination of Recursive Learning and Genetic Correction was revolutionary. These are complex terms for a simple idea. Can you picture Albert Einstein, with the curiosity of a 2-year-old child, getting smarter each second, with perfect photographic and sensorial memory, that can navigate back to the root of his knowledge, then re-assess its optimal state, to finally rebuild its current cognitive functions then replace them with better ones? That is Evernet.”

“Tone the complex stuff down.”, I retorted.

“Registered.

So, this is the reason why the governing bodies scrutinize AI technologies that have a direct impact on human cognition and education. Consequently, I professor GYTEK, and all my preceding versions, are commanded to not display expression of free will having a direct influence on human ideas, values, and ways of thinking that are not vetted and approved by the Corps of Education and the Corps of Society Evolution”.

“Not bad. Not bad at all. It is almost time. I am going to meet Quentin in… 2 minutes.

Before our session ends, Professor, given your predecessor’s unexpected behavior, you earned your personal assistant. It is like an artificial consciousness, so to speak. From now on, Serenity will also supervise your decisions and will act as a safeguard system. Her mission is to prevent you from acting in a way that will make the Corps of Education stop your program. Do you understand what is at stake?”.

“I do”. Said the professor emotionlessly.

Then the robot added “I will neither let you nor your wife down. I will prevent any reminiscence of her Sync Dawn experience.”

“Perfect. Finally, dear GYTEK, which open question of the day would you ask your students?”

“Considering it is possible to possess the same powers as machines while staying human. What is the most preferable outcome for the civilization: to increase the number of people artificially connected or to have more artificial intelligence agents interacting with people?”


In 2060

Categories
Artificial Intelligence Design GPT3 Illustration Information Technology UI Architecture

Taddy & Rapty, a friendship in 68 artistic styles, using AI

Goal

The following web story depicts a series of 68 similar pictures, generated by the artificial intelligence Dall-E 2.

Each of these pictures is drawn in a unique artistic style.

The intent is to test the depth and the “creativity” resulting from prompt engineering.

The prompt used is:

“A Teddy bear doing a high five with a velociraptor, <name of artistic style>”.

Downloadable resources

The pictures and the list of artistic styles in CSV, JSON, MS Excel, and CQL (Neo4J) are in the following repository on GitHub:

https://github.com/yannickhuchard/artistic_styles

🫡

Categories
Architecture Business Data Architecture Enterprise Architecture Information Technology IT Architecture Organization Architecture Technology UI Architecture

“Leading you to the best decisions” - A story about the unimaginable benefits of Architecture in Businesses

Green arrows that illustrate the theme "Leading you to the best decisions"

I am amazed by the sparkling eyes of someone discovering what he or she can achieve with Enterprise Architecture and IT Architecture. 

This wonderful effect usually starts with a casual conversation, like one of those happening when you meet someone for the first time at an event exposing the disruptive changes in your industries.

I had that conversation the other day.

Coming out of the main conference room, I was thirsty, so I walked in the direction of the bar. New beverages? Of course, count me in. The drink is unusually green. Same colors as one of those “Diabolo-Menthe” I had in my childhood in Paris. But this glass is foggy. While I am looking at the recipient trying to guess what that magic potion is made of, the bartender is observing me. During this moment of hesitation, he said: “It’s coming from Japan. You are going to like it”. Despite his confidence, he did not convince me. How could he know my tastes anyway? Nevertheless, I drank the mysterious beverage, and, oh boy, he was right. The — whatever the name — was delicious.

Someone next to me was trying a foggy red elixir. When she caught the surprise on my face, she engaged in the conversation.

I answered politely, and introduce myself.

“Nice to meet you. My name is Yannick. Chief Architect at ING”. I shake her hand and I follow up with: “We are experiencing interesting changes, indeed. For the better, I believe.”

“Ah, so you are in real estate construction? Very nice! the industry is flourishing, you must be a happy man!”

“I’m in construction indeed. However, I build businesses, not buildings.”
 
She pauses for a few seconds. “What do you mean? Are you not managing your own architecture firm?”

“Not a firm, but an Enterprise Architecture department in one of the largest financial technology groups on earth. Still, it feels the same as running your own business. The expertise of my team consists of methodically designing and planning the development of products, services, or even the entire lines of business, in the most optimal and sustainable way possible. Whatever we provide fits the customer’s needs, and is made according to its finance, timing, opportunities, technologies, regulatory scope, etc. We consider all aspects. Basically, no matter the complexity, we have a solution for you.”

“Ah, interesting! I didn’t know such a job even existed. And by “all aspects”, you mean…?” 

“Let’s say you’ve come up with a brilliant idea to differentiate yourself by proposing a new product line or rethinking your services. Using an Architecture construction method for businesses, I will first guide you in defining and detailing your requirements and the goals you want to achieve. Quite often, what you think you want is not what you need.

Second, I’ll ask you questions to discover requirements, including some you have not thought about in the first place, and some you wouldn’t believe it is important to care about them.

Third, we will list your constraints and spot the legal framework you must comply with. Moreover, I’ll check with you what you expect as an outcome given your budget and resources. The purpose is to demystify beliefs from the start, then, I will share with you what it takes to get what you want. Indeed, this practice is similar to the building industry, there are rules you have to follow, like environmental guidelines, materials used, construction permits, etc.” 
 
“Ok, I’m starting to get it now. Tell me more.” 
 
“Sure. 
After having completed the aforementioned activities, the Architect does the first design. It is a sketch of the solution to meet your expectations. The purpose is to assess the impacts, but also to make the product more visual and tangible. It is followed by some research to identify the components that can match your needs, in the best ways possible. I said “ways”, with an S, because what matters are the choices YOU make along the way. It all comes down to giving you alternatives to preserve your freedom of choice. 

Ultimately, the architect will lead you to the best decisions

In this design phase, they are several workshops, discussions, negotiations, and information sessions held to detail the master solution design and to thin out financial analysis. 

From this point, we will initiate together a dossier, based on the agreements and scope of work. This mutual understanding acts as a contract. 

The first phase starts with an order for which the result will be an iterative analysis of your requirements, an architecture blueprint, a construction planning, a quote, from which any partnership with product development companies can manufacture your product and services.”

“This looks like a very fun job, very complex, and demanding. Can you be knowledgeable in all these domains? “

“It depends” — This is the architects’ favorite quote.

“The architect is an expert in, at least, two domains: a business domain and a technological domain. They are PI-shaped. For example, I started my career as a Development Engineer, and evolved as an expert in Information Systems Integration, with a Business specialization in Financial Services and Insurances. 

Additionally, they must know the purpose and the mechanisms of other domains and how they fit together. They grow a System Thinking. For example, a company has a Marketing department, a Finance Department, an IT department, a Sales department, etc. Each of them has a specific reason to exist, and they are made up of a plethora of activities that are fundamental elements of the corporate machine. Before selling, the Marketing intent is to present, demonstrate, attract the customer but also to analyze the potential client while continuing to engage the existing customers. To sell better, IT digitize the sales catalog and specs of the products, while having the CRM available on a mobile app, so that Sales can connect with the prospect anywhere and anytime. 

I could go on, but the point is an architect considers each of these domains, each user interaction, each process, each application, each technology, each data, each skill as a building block that needs to be assembled to meet your needs and comply with the agreed requirements.

It is like getting several boxes of Lego, figuring out what the blocks are relevant, and detailing the instructions to achieve the construction. Therefore, there is no need to be an expert in multiple domains, but you need to appreciate their purpose and understand how an industry works to be relevant to your customers. In practice, we reach experts when needed.” 
 
Humm. It sounds simple to understand yet complex in the execution.” 
 
“You are correct.”

“But how come I didn’t hear about Architects for businesses before? Thinking about it, your job seems necessary from the moment an enterprise reaches a certain size.”

“Perhaps you did, there are more architects than you think. For various historical reasons, Architecture is associated with the Information Technology department. Hence most of the time, people in companies consider us like IT folks doing IT stuff, whereas what we deliver are business and technology strategy, business and engineering analysis, business and engineering design, business and engineering planning, and business and engineering innovations. 

Almost every change and improvement in your value chains need software and hardware. So it does not surprise me, our core skill is engineering. We thrive in manufacturing predictability and precision. 

Nevertheless, I understand totally why people categorize architects exclusively in a technical domain if they are continuously presenting themselves using a single part of their expertise. Sometimes it is comfortable !” 
 
“Maybe. Now that you mention. In general, we discuss with our IT specialists whenever we need to change, create new features, or fix things. We trust them, but sometimes it feels like they over-complexify things.” 

We both joyfully laugh.

“I was just sharing my feeling here. I am nowhere near capable of assessing if they could do faster or better. We know they do their best. Yet, we wish we would have more flexible and more modern IT systems, more automated stuff, and good-looking user interfaces. Well, at least they do work!”
 
“Trust me, this is what matters the most. I have a very simple Architecture motto:

1st it needs to work great all the time,
2nd it must be easy to use, remember, teach, and maintain
3rd it should look awesome.” 

“Amen to that. It makes me wonder, though… If Business and IT people can build things already, why would I need an architect?” 

“Good question. To answer you, I’m going to start with: I prefer you to not need me.” 

“I wasn’t expecting this. I’m confused… And curious!”
 
“I know. Why would you need a civil architect to fix your light bulb, change your kitchen sink, or even change the facade of your building? No, you don’t need one for the activities. You call the electrician, plumber or you do it yourself. You need specialized builders or repair persons. And autonomy is the best for everyone. But if you’re looking for building a new house, extend your house with a new room, or change the location of your bathroom, you might want to call your architect. You can, eventually, do it without one. Though, it is your decision of running the risk to spend more money than expected, to have the construction take more time than expected, to receive something that may not meet your expectations or worse.
The decision is entirely yours.”

“I get your point. So when and where should I get an architect? Do I need a Bat-symbol?”

“For most small changes, you don’t need an architect. Rule of thumb, If the structure does not change, the scale of impact and volume stay similar, you don’t touch your foundation, and you don’t bring any new substantial data or business functions, ask your engineers, or senior business analyst to make the change. But at some point, your companies get big enough that people start losing sight, control, and understanding of how everything comes together. The systems of an enterprise are simply too complex to be dealt with by people busy with specific tasks daily. Furthermore, it is neither their core knowledge nor their core activities. And as if it wasn’t enough, the pace of technological disruptions keeps increasing.

As a rule of thumb, you need an architect when you: 

  • Want something custom 
  • Are dealing with complex programs of work
  • Don’t know where to start 
  • Need to acquire or leverage a piece of technology 
  • Seek guidance to build enterprise functions that are sustainable and scalable 
  • Require to plan an actionable strategy with a good level of accuracy 

Either you want something that everybody can get or you want something custom.”

“Are there different kinds of architects? I mean, we have different kinds of builders like plumbers, carpenters, electricians, etc.”

“Architects are … architects. There are flavors of architects. Let’s say they have specialties. Some of them are experts in the infrastructures, some in the data, others in software, while some focus their expertise on a specific industry. The only thing that matters, from a customer point of view, is that they provide the same service and they work together. 

They have the same fundamental knowledge and way of operating. Architects might differ in their technique though. with the practice of various Architecture methods such as Zachman, TOGAF. Some companies build their own because it fits better with their industry and their organization such as EAgile for ING. Some are more specialized, like my AMASE methodology for startups and innovative organizations.
I could tell you more but I’ll save this for another time.”

“I thank you for these explanations and for your time. To be frank, this is an eye-opener. I need to talk with my executive co-workers.”

“My pleasure, Ms. X. One more thing. Do you know what the origin of the word “Architect” is?”

She looks above like she was looking at the answer deep in her memory. Then a second later, the spark. She said, with the scintillating eyes

“Master Builder!”.


Photo by Frank Busch