DIGITALIZATION

Digitalization in logistics has transformed the way we optimize routes and how well we can track parcels. Knowing the dimension already from the start also make the sorting process much more straightforward. This also transformed the planning of shifts and made it possible to be extremely precise with how many workers are needed at a certain time. Everything is connected to the Internet of Things (IoT), which means there is an almost endless stream of data that can be collected and used for planning. But as collecting massive amounts of data gets easier, the need for data storage and data centers increase, which will increase expenses and effect the environment. Some jobs are already 100% remote work in the industry and I expect Work From Home (WFH) opportunities to increase. The tech for remote work has already existed for decades, but the pandemic finally made it acceptable and even the norm. In the future of my field all trucks will be self driving and most of the office staff will probably be replaced by AI. A change that I’m not a fan of is that you now need an app for getting your parcel from a “dropbox”, and as each courier has their own app, you will need a lot of apps and accounts for them.

General Data Protection Regulation and Open Digital Society

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was a great way to make a common legislation for the entire European Union. To be completely honest, the only visible thing that GDPR changed in my life was that I now have to click “allow” every time I enter a new website. A big flaw is of it is that websites can just hide the “allow necessary” button under a lot of scrolling and time wasting, which means people will just click the “allow all” button instead. At work I now have information about how my data from security clearances and such is stored. I know the point of it is to keep your data safe and allow you to “disappear” from the internet if you want to, but in this age of constant data breaches and leaks, I don’t see it being 100% effective.

But all this is pretty much useless if the European Union decides to adopt chat control or whatever it will be called this time after countless failures. After that nothing in the internet will be private anymore, and I can imagine there will be countless corporate and private secrets leaked once hacker groups figure out these “backdoors”.

I like the idea of Open Digital Society, especially about making information and services accessible and transparent. Especially elder people have often trouble accessing and using the digital services offered in Finland. I have personally used open code software for decades already, which is often the only way for someone without a credit card to access different applications.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

I tried asking Chat-GPT some logistics related questions. The answers were kind of right, but the more specific it needs to be, the worse it became. The main issue is that it just picked whatever some SEO wizard has managed to get as the first Google search result. The problem is that it does either not have access to scientific journals, or it doesn’t have permission to cite them. All of this leads to the answers to be information from random websites instead of real scientific sources. I have used Chat-GPT before as well to make some excel files and it was a disaster, as no matter what I wrote, it did not understand what I wanted. I prefer copilot for now, at least when I need help with my studies. I think AI will take over most basic office jobs in the future and it already is taking over creative industries as I keep seeing more and more AI-generated ads on the internet and even on the streets of Turku.

I always thought digitalization would mean that robots would replace manual labor, but I now realize that replacing someone with a masters degree with AI is saving a lot of money versus replacing a manual laborer with a robot, which will actually cost more money for now. The potential is huge, but I don’t think society is ready for entire industries to be replaced by AI. A big issue right now are scammers using AI-generated videos of celebrities to promote whatever pyramid scheme they have going on. A lot of people get fooled and lose their money while Meta, X and Google don’t care as long as they get ad revenue.

SELF EVALUATION

A lot of the videos were from over a decade ago, so I feel like it was already common knowledge at this point. But the The incredible inventions of intuitive AI video was so spot on I was stunned to see that it was made back in 2016. The bridge they printed for Amsterdam even looks futuristic. Europe’s digital decade was something completely new to me and quite interesting. The targets seem very reachable, and the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) seems interesting. I will keep a track of The State of the Digital Decade reports, as they could help plan for my future career as well. I got a lot of new perspectives from the other blogs about the impact of digitalization on different fields, especially in healthcare. The only thing I was aware of was the massive failure of the Apotti system, but apparently there is a lot more to digitalization in healthcare than just the implementation of that system.

I feel like I need to get better at asking or formulating the right questions for Chat-GPT. It is a useful skill to ask a specific thing in a specific way to get what you want, especially when generating spreadsheets/data/images. My future career is probably dependent on how well I work with different AI. Unless it’s all a big bubble that will burst in the next few years, we will have to wait and see.

I have commented on the article by Piret here:
https://blogi.savonia.fi/piret/digi-society/
And on the article by Ville here:
https://blogi.savonia.fi/villejamia/digi-society/