— By Buckley Brinkman, advisor to the Wisconsin Center for Manufacturing and Productivity
For WisBusiness.com
Wisconsin should lead the nation in AI implementation. Instead, we are likely to do too little by trying to do too much. We should focus on our strength – engagement around practical and creative solutions to real world problems.
Wisconsinites are an independent and provincial people. We are fiercely self-sufficient, infused with the belief that we can handle almost anything by ourselves – or with a close group of friends. That drives us to a provincialism that says our part of the state is special, we’re fine, and solutions created elsewhere will never apply to us. Each region knows that it is the best and shares a deep feeling of pride. We like practical approaches and resources that are easily within reach.
We come by these attitudes honestly: Our forefathers and mothers were explorers and farmers and mechanics – people who needed to immediately take care of issues to survive. Of course, they passed those qualities onto us. When I think “Wisconsinbly,” I think spirited, practical, and focused.
That approach won’t work with AI. The technology moves too fast for any one person or entity to keep up. It’s more accessible than almost any other technology we’ve seen – even I can use it! AI is blowing up our ideas, business models, and basic heuristics, making it critical that we develop new pathways. Finally, it can also be dangerous – charging ahead without the guardrails or established ethics needed to keep us safe. That’s a challenge because many of the risks have yet to be discovered.
A recent Brookings regional AI study showed Wisconsin lags on almost all of the 14 AI dimensions they measured. Our initial reaction will be to jump into action, trying to improve ourselves in all the listed areas. That is a fool’s errand because it diffuses resources among divergent objectives and organizations – starving initiatives with promise and overfunding areas where we have rarely been competitive.
Progressing effectively requires more imagination, focus, and collaboration than our genes normally allow. We should focus our time and treasure on areas of strength and advantage – being willing to include speed and collaboration into the definition of Wisconsinbly.
Use cases – not skills development – will drive AI adoption. Most advanced technologies require significant financial investment and an above-average technical understanding to effectively implement them in our operations. AI requires neither. Instead, it is limited by the examples we can see or our imaginations can conjure. This difference makes it critical that we work together to fuel our imaginations, learn what is possible in different situations, and set in motion a process where we can pool our efforts and learn from each other.
In my work around the state, I see the early sprouts of this change popping through the snow. In almost every community I see two things happening. First, individuals and organizations can learn basic AI skills through local offerings. Those skills make it possible to engage with various agents and models to get immediate results with very little help. Second, traditional consultants are available to overcome specific issues. They offer some of the fundamental resources to get individual AI initiatives off the ground, but it is not nearly enough to drive wide, transformational implementation.
The larger, statewide changes will come from a network approach where individual regions develop their own deep AI specialties; we create platforms and processes where these regions can share their specialties with other regions; and we implement a cadenced system that connects these specialties, finds new ways to integrate their impact, and catalyzes new learning that accelerates the impact for all of Wisconsin.
It’s a tough task, but there are some promising first steps happening along what I’m calling the AI Triangle. In Menomonie – at UW-Stout – the Center for Advanced Manufacturing and AI tackles the complication of integrating physical components with AI to improve operational output. In Green Bay, TitletownTech looks for AI applications to fuel emerging entrepreneurial companies that can transform our basic businesses. On the third corner of the triangle – at UW-Milwaukee – the Microsoft AI Co-Innovation Lab for Manufacturing helps companies solve problems by creating AI prototypes for manufacturing issues. All three corners are developing their unique specialties and all three corners work together to accelerate each other’s learning and success.
If Wisconsin wants to lead the nation in practical AI implementation, then we need a network (not a new shape) with vibrant nodes that can accelerate our progress. The network also needs efficient routines to quickly share progress and accelerate learning. The outcomes will be a robust set of use cases to propel organizational change, opportunities to accelerate learning by integrating lessons learned into new solutions, and more efficient leveraging of scarce expertise.
Working Wisconsinbly around AI will connect our traditional practicality and focus to new collaboration and speed to accelerate our state to the front of the pack in diffusing this exciting technology and making all our lives better.
