Service in the AI Era

Meeting link: You will receive meeting link after registration confirmation process.
Speaker: Dr. Jim Spohrer, Retired industry executive (Apple, IBM), UIDP Senior Fellow, Board of Directors ISSIP and ServCollab

Abstract: This talk will begin with a summary of the book “Service in the AI Era: Science, Logic, and Architecture Perspective” by Spohrer, Maglio, Vargo, and Warg.  The book highlights the importance of upskilling with AI to give and get better service.  Service providers will not be replaced by AI, but service providers who use AI will replace those who don’t.  All of us who fill a role in an organization are service providers.  Both the benefits and harms of advancing AI capabilities to enhance service systems will be explored for people, businesses, universities, cities, and nations.  The talk also explores the way in which all responsible actors can learn to invest systematically and wisely in win-win interaction and change processes.  The audience will be challenged to think about what goals they will work on when they have 100 digital workers helping them.

Short bio: Jim Spohrer is a Silicon Valley-based Advisor to industry, academia, governments, startups and non-profits on topics of AI upskilling, innovation strategy, and win-win service in the AI era.  Most recently with a consulting team working for a top 10 market cap global company, he contributed to a strategic plan for a globally connected AI Academy for achieving rapid, nation-scale upskilling with AI.  With the US National Academy of Engineering, he co-led a 2022 workshop on “Service Systems Engineering in the Era of Human-Centered AI” to improve well-being.

Jim is a retired IBM Executive since July 2021, and previously directed IBM’s open-source Artificial Intelligence developer ecosystem effort, was CTO IBM Venture Capital Group, co-founded IBM Almaden Service Research, and led IBM Global University Programs.  In the 1990’s at Apple Computer, as a Distinguished Engineer Scientist and Technologist, he was executive lead on next generation learning platforms.  In the 1970’s, after his MIT BS in Physics, he developed speech recognition systems at Verbex (Exxon) before receiving his Yale PhD in Computer Science/AI. In 1989, prior to joining Apple, he was a visiting scholar at the University of Rome, La Sapienza advising doctoral students working on AI and Education dissertations. With over ninety publications and nine patents, he received the Christopher Lovelock Career Contributions to the Service Discipline award, Gummesson Service Research award, Vargo and Lusch Service-Dominant Logic award, Daniel Berg Service Systems award, and a PICMET Fellow for advancing service science. Jim was elected and previously served as Linux Foundation AI & Data Technical Advisory Board Chairperson and ONNX Steering Committee Member (2020-2021).  Today, he is a UIDP Senior Fellow for contributions to industry-university collaborations, and a member of the Board of Directors of the International Society of Service Innovation (ISSIP) and ServCollab.