Tag: News

It took only 50 years for a Tech. Giant to share the reality with the public?

Following is a brief excerpt from the recent NYT essay titled: Bill Gates Warns A.I. Is More Dangerous Than Big Tech Will Admit https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/26/technology/bill-gates-ai-risks.html

In an hourlong interview, he said his industry was downplaying the risks, which he believes include mass unemployment and bioterrorism.
Mr. Gates said technological advances had truly stunned him three times: In 1980 when he first saw a graphical user interface, which led to the modern personal computer.In 2022 when the leaders of OpenAI came to his house to demonstrate what would soon become ChatGPT. And this year when he looked closely at the advances being made by Claude Code, Anthropic’s A.I. tool.

This shock (“Stunned” as Mr. Bill Gates put it) in the unbridled development in “Technology”, has been the lived experience or nightmare of every manufacturing professional in the USA, since the 1980s later spreading to any professional  worldwide!
We have described this nightmare in the introduction to our book:
The System Approach – A strategy to survive and succeed in the Global Economy, published in 2000.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/1569902550
We have reproduced this “nightmare” scenario of a manufacturing worker below.

Let us face it. AI and its impact is a bigger monster we face today. But the problems started in the late 1970s! All those who have been claiming “Technology” driven innovation is the savior for all, have been misleading the public with that term – Technology –  by which they merely refer to Digital Technology and nothing else. We must come to accept the reality that human dignity as a workforce will be uplifted only through the true evolutions in Technology (an integrated deployment of Science, their applications -Engineering and focussed on collaboration for larger common good – Management). It requires an integrated view of the opportunities, their solutions and the benefits for a larger common goal. We can call this the “System Thinking” and the drive towards that. For details see: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0791860167
Thriving in the 21st Century Economy – Transformational Skills.

A Bad Dream:
Paul Gagnon was seated in a comfortable chair.  Next to him, in the conference room was seated his Supervisor, Mary Patterson, a young and successful engineer in the company.  It was a new and strange experience for Paul.  As a production worker in the company, Paul had never attended any such meeting before now.  Along with Paul and Mary, there were several others in the room:  Joe Whitehead – the Department Manager, Linda Cook – the Financial Controller, Ralph McCarthy – Congressman and Jack Singer the President of the Operating Unit.
“Shall we get started,” signaled Jack, trying to get the attention of everyone.  “We have relied heavily on worker productivity, to keep us ahead of our competition.  It is now at an all-time high.  I have never seen our workforce as hard at work as much as I see them perform at the present time.  We have installed the best information systems, which by the way has helped to wring out significant cost reductions in our operation in the past two years.” 
Paul shifted slowly in his chair, more in discomfort of what he had just heard.  “By significant cost reduction, Mr. Singer really meant laying off about 40 people from this company, 25% work force reduction?  Didn’t Mr. Scott Sealy, the Human Resources Manager, describe this as re-engineering?” reflected Paul.
“Our profitability, even though it is not as high as I would like it to be, is not bad,” continued Jack Singer.  “Yet, there is a lot of uneasiness everywhere.  On the one hand, we want our workers to be committed and loyal, yet I do not see any way of assuring them of our commitment to their employment.  As you know, these are not the good old days, when we can reasonably say that a person is hired for a lifetime, as long as he/she does a good job.  Doing the very best in a given job does not seem to be good enough anymore.  Yesterday, I was at the corporate meeting.  I heard talk about acquisitions and mergers.  The guys at the top feel that we cannot be competitive, even with all our improvements.  An option being talked about is moving the entire operation to an offshore location.  I simply don’t get this,” continued Jack with a sense of frustration that was clearly shared by everyone in the room.  “Well, why don’t we go around the room and see what is on everyone’s mind,” continued Mr. Singer.  “As you know, we called this meeting to get everyone’s points of view on our current situation and where we are headed.”
“This is not the Jack Singer, I know,” thought Paul Gagnon.  “Whatever happened to the orderly introductions and a careful outline of the objectives for the meeting.  Jack is good at this sort of stuff.  Clearly, something is seriously wrong.  Maybe Jack senses something serious but cannot get his arms around it.”
“I am Joe Whitehead, the design manager.  In the past five years, my department has shrunk by 50%.  I have lost most of my key design talent – the draftsman, the engineer in charge of heat transfer analysis, the design details engineer all been let go, through our re-engineering effort.”

“Joe has always been politically correct” reflected Paul Gagnon.

“We do most of the design analysis overseas and download them through the internet.  The way things are going we may not even need many design options, if our customers buy sub assemblies from our competition instead of buying our components and assembling them, as they do now.  The word is that our competitors plan to integrate the function of our components into their subassembly.  This may even eliminate the need for our components.”
“The days are getting longer and harder “jumped in Mary Pattterson, the manufacturing engineer”.  When I came into this job three years ago, we had a tooling engineer, a quality engineer in charge of inspection, a guy for maintenance and I was in charge of process development.  Today, I seem to be everywhere.  I don’t mind that as long as I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  When I heard of the acquisitions, mergers and move to the off shore that concerns me a lot “sighed Mary.
“We have invested in the capital at an unprecedented rate in the past few years.  Yes, they are paying off, but not as much as they are supposed to.  When I walk around the company, I get the sense that everyone looks at me as if I am the one to be blamed for all the lay offs.  If everyone understood the basic economics, they would know for themselves what is happening and why,” lamented Linda as she stared at the piles of accounting documents, neatly arranged in binders in front of her.
“I simply don’t get it,” said Ralph McCarthy, the congressman in his slow drawl.  “When I go to Washington, they tell me about all these wonderful numbers.  The unemployment is low.  The labor productivity is high.  The US economy is at the top.  Yet, when I come home, all I hear is uneasiness and a sense of helplessness.  Why isn’t life the way it used to be?  Simple, where everyone did their job and everyone knew what they were supposed to do.  Maybe it is because we have moved from a manufacturing economy to an information economy?”

Paul Gagnon looked around.  Everyone had finished their turn.  Perhaps he was supposed to say something.  The only thought that came to mind was his young son David.  What will his life be like when he grows up?  Will he be doing the same job as Paul, who now runs a computer-controlled machine, with built in inspection tools?  Paul has been busy studying and taking courses just to stay on top of his current job.  He knows of several of his co-workers who were laid off, simply because they could not keep up with the changes.  Paul had dreamed that David would one day be an engineer like Mary.  Nevertheless, listening to Mary and Joe, he was not sure anymore.  Everyone in the room, whom Paul had counted as role models for his son, were gloomy and dispirited.  “I really don’t know what to say.  I really don’t,” muttered Paul. 

“Honey, it is time to wake up.  What is it you don’t know?  You have been saying this all night,” said his wife Susan as she gently stroked Paul, urging him to get up.

“It was all a bad dream, dear.  I am glad it is over” said Paul as he woke up, pushing aside the sheets of paper, getting up from the bed.  “Honey, there is no time left for dreaming anymore” retorted Susan.  “With three of our kids, all going to different schools and both of us working, I don’t even have a moment to rest up, much less a good night’s sleep.  I don’t know how you manage to find time for all your dreams”, finished Susan.

Reality: It will be wonderful indeed, if Paul Gagnon’s dream was just that – a dream.  However, it is an inescapable reality, a true nightmare!  Every one has had shades of experience reflected in this fictional episode.  The thoughts of Jack, Joe, Mary, Linda, Ralph and Paul described in the dream are shades of real-life experiences faced by millions of Americans in one way or the other.  Let us look at some of the evidence:

‘What harms them, harms all of humanity’

Considering the current challenges related to war and peace worldwide, it is encouraging to observe global leaders like the Pope taking initiative and advocating for responsibility and measures towards restoration of peace.

Pope on Middle East: ‘What harms them, harms all of humanity’
After praying the Angelus, Pope Leo calls for an end to violence around the world, urging everyone to persevere in prayer because “we cannot remain silent in the face of the suffering of so many people, innocent victims of these conflicts.” https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2026-03/pope-we-cant-be-silent-in-face-of-suffering-of-many-innocents.html

The harm for the innocent citizens, children, men and women of Israel is not merely a heinous act of a few from Hamas, but it is a cruel episode in human history. The death and destruction that followed in Gazza, the ravages of life and property in Iran by their own Government as well as through bombings by U.S. and Isreal, the loss of life of U.S. soldiers and the many innocent citizens in all countries in the region, not to speak of the unending aggression by Russia and the war in Ukraine, ….. there seems like no end in sight!

For all of the above, one can blame the leaders in the many countries. Does the ownership stop there? All the death and destruction are caused by bombs, ammunition and the war machinery – all of which are paid for by Taxpayer money! At least in that sense, there is a direct connection between the savage outcomes in the battlefield and the funding for all the war machinery enabled by the hard work and earnings of every citizen in the USA and his/her taxes paid to the U.S. Government. When we look at it that way, each one of us have a share n these tragic outcomes.  “We cannot remain silent in the face of the suffering of so many people, innocent victims of these conflicts,” as the Pope points out.

Vedic Philosophy proclaims:
Everyone and indeed everything is integral and inseparable part of Nature, as a whole! (Tat Twam Asi).

Above is an obvious and self-evident truth!  It also implies that every one of us is responsible and has a part in all the good as well as the bad that occur everywhere, even across the globe. Instead of being and becoming a “Culture of responsibility”, we tend to outsource our responsibility to a few individuals ordained as leaders in each country. This herd mentality seems to become codified in the name of organization, nationality, authority and power structure! When these leaders go “rogue”, the nation as a whole pays the price! Today we witness this herd mentality and the leaders going rogue in their authority, responsibility and work. Breaking the silence against such run away leadership and governance truly calls for a spiritual outlook, a view of equal regard for the welfare of all and against the mentality of “tooth for a tooth” and an “eye for an eye”!

In terms of management and leadership, to say a leader has “gone rogue” at work means they have abandoned established company policies, strategic alignment, or ethical standards to pursue their own agenda, or to act independently without authorization. A rogue leader essentially acts as a “dark knight” or “vigilante,” often creating their own rules while disregarding the chain of command, disregarding well established norms, resulting in dysfunctional teams, low morale, and increased risk for the organization.

No one can expect a better tomorrow under such rogue leaders and their leadership. It requires a collective engagement of all. It requires a return to leadership with a Spiritual Outlook that seeks the welfare of all. It requires action beyond merely blaming rogue leaders. The action includes communication between fellow employees, developing and forging a commitment to restore what is right and find ways to correct all that is wrong.

Generally, in a company such rogue leaders drive the company to bankruptcy. I have been a victim of such rogue leadership, and the bankruptcy of a large Co. in the early part of my professional career. International Harvester was the 4th largest Co. in USA in the early 80s. It went bankrupt in less than one year thanks to a leader and his series of moves, each a failure compounding the next! https://time.com/archive/6855087/goodbye-archie/  A new R&D center initiated only a few months earlier was shut down. Scores of highly talented professionals recruited from all across the USA had to scurry and find their next job and career elsewhere!

In a Democracy, such “bankruptcy” is not an option! People switching jobs and place of living is not an option when the nation as a whole suffers from social, economic and political turmoil. Instead, what is needed is a resolve to exercise the rights of citizens and their duty to elect new leaders that replace the “rogue” leaders and the impact of their poor leadership!

Concerted response required for the recent letter “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” ?

The recent letter “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” and its rejection by MIT could be a welcome opportunity for the Educational Leaders and the leading Institutions?
https://lnkd.in/gYxdYv7J
The letter “Compact for ….” from the Education Secretary appears to be a Trojan Horse for power grab and an attempt to curb free thinking. The shallow intellectual depth of the administration makes one wonder, if there is even an interest to promote “Conservative” values in lieu of “Liberal” thoughts and expression in campuses! It might just be an old ploy of pitting one group against another and relishing in the chaos, as the outcome!
The challenge through the letter from the Education Secretary and this Administration goes beyond their thinking and adversarial approach to governing. In fact they stem from insidious developments over the past five decades or more that have been metastasizing our nation, its culture and our Democratic and moral fibre.
For example:
— Technology (=Science X Engineering X Managment) is now synonymously treated as reflecting only IT, Computer Science, Data Science or AI! In other words, the entire value of MIT is reduced to one Department or one sector of activity!
— Rewards of Capitalism have degenerated the society that was once heavily middle class (40/40/20 : Poor/Middle/Rich) into a nation of “haves” and “have nots” (90/10: Poor and Middle /Ultra rich). Traditional sharing of the wealth through Risk/Reward has not shifted to Risk/Effort/Reward sharing models.
— While it may be true that over 80% of MIT undergraduates are free of loan burden, that can not be said of most UGs across the nation. Being driven out of the middle class they are also driven into economic disadvantage Vs. their global college educated compatriots.
— Most of the Social Media products – with their inability to control and limit the polarizing effect on the society – are developed and implemented by graduates from top schools like MIT, aided by low wage high skilled H1B Visa workers.
In all of the above, schools like MIT are not solely responsible for the outcomes. But, systemic failure in leadership across the nation, over the decades, to challenge the above outcomes and their corrupting influence has to be acknowledged. It has been leading to despair and “throw the baby out with the bath water” attitude on our social and democratic norms. These are the undercurrent rhat fuel this administration and its political power. As I have learned at MIT, the “System and its solution” need a comprehensive approach addressing several issues at the same time! My plea to the leadership at MIT as well as at other leading institutions is to take bold action on the above (bulleted) and other similar issues. That would be a worthy antidote raising social awareness and public support against arbitrary and misplaced demands from the current administration?

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7382497220568211456/

Whose America is it? – Part 2

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time” – quote attributed to Winston Churchill. Today with all the challenges we face in our system of Government, faith in Democracy and America as the unfailing cradle and leader of such Democracy is called into question.

Successful Democracy requires well informed citizens, who vote for their best self-interest. It also requires that self-interest is viewed through a larger perspective and not merely through polarized lens of narrow partisan interests. In the recent election, even narrow partisan self-interest seems to have failed. How else can one explain the vote of those in the Dearborn area – supporters of Palestinian’s aspirations – who now find themselves between a rock and a hard place, thanks to the policies proposed from the current administration, centered around expelling millions of Gazans from their historic home land. This is just one example of irrationality of voting patterns that might have failed the American Democracy, the greatest political experiment on earth.

Failure of ill-informed voting public goes beyond such narrow ethnic group oriented politically sensitive subjects. Nor is it our goal to dwell on them. Let us look at a couple of rather broadly accepted notions that cut across all groups and population segments. One among them is the notion that “Government must be run efficiently, like a business. Hence it is necessary to cut the cost to the bones!”. This statement assumes that “businesses are run efficiently”. This is a far cry from reality. Business leaders, part of the voting public, must be honest and truthful to admit that every successful business is run to make profit and meet share holder expectations. In this shadow boxing – the mythical notion of satisfying shareholders, the “kabuki theater” – there is plenty of inefficiency. Rare indeed are businesses that are truly run lean and mean in a sustained manner over time.

Next is the notion that ALL Government departments must be cut back to demonstrate efficiency! Another hog wash notion? In some areas like production operations, it is realistic and feasible to show efficiency and cost cutting as directly related to the resources needed. But that is not the case for R&D, Marketing, Administration, HR and all such “service” functions. You don’t hire and fire intellectual talent or critical resources at will and on demand. This concept may apply to many of the important Government Departments that affect our health, safety, security and welfare.

Here is one more: In the name of efficiency and cost cutting senior employees in the work force were seen as “fixed cost” and can be disposed off, leading severe loss of unique talent in Manufacturing operations in the 80s and 90s. Now we find the same mistake repeated by indiscriminate firing of key staff in FDA, Missile systems management, FAA, etc. Whose America is it to permit all these reckless and loose cannon approach to management of our vital resources and services?

Following are a few passages from an article titled: 2,400 years ago, Plato saw democracy would give rise to a tyrannical leader filled with “false and braggart words –https://qz.com/1293998/2400-years-ago-plato-saw-democracy-would-give-rise-to-a-tyrannical-leader-filled-with-false-and-braggart-words

Josiah Ober, professor of political science and classics at Stanford University says the passages from Plato’s Republic read as “a particularly harsh description of the most tyrannical parts of Trump’s public personality.”

Plato’s Republic, which evaluates the nature and justice of various political regimes and examines how individuals’ moral psychologies are interlinked with the moral psychology of their state, is intended as a work of philosophy rather than a prediction of how political events would unfold. That said, Plato’s critique of democracy contains a number of aspects relevant today.

Plato believed that the key and driving feature of democracy is desire for freedom; this very trait, though, ultimately leads a state to tyranny. A democratic regime involves such a plurality of interests, he believed, that the only way anything can be achieved under it is to have strong leadership that can unite interests. “It’s not a complete portrait of modern democracy but it captures something: This desire for a strong leader who can give guidance to diverse pluralistic uncoordinated desires,” says Oder.

Plato states “The tyrant mistrusts both those within and outside his circle, and so essentially ends up in a sort of servitude himself.” Role and influence of men like Elon Musk and their passion to change all things at all costs reminds us of this self-enforced slavery of an elected leader today.

For a more optimistic interpretation of today’s political regimes, Ober suggests looking to Aristotle, who understood that true democracy is fundamentally opposed to tyranny. Contemporary politics may cause consternation, but Ober says it’s worth believing in the political regime. After all, he adds, “Democracy has to be built on hope.”

Keynote Presentations at COPEN-13, @ NIT Calicut – India

Dr. Krishnamoorthy (Subbu) Subramanian, President STIMS Institute and Prof. Ramesh N. Babu, IIT – Madras and Secretary AMTDC presented a joint invited Key Note address at the 13th Conference on Precision Engineering (COPEN – 13) on Dec. 13th 2024 at NIT Calicut, Kerala, India. The presentation was followed by a panel session to further gain insights on successful models and strategy for industry/academia collaboration together with support from the funding agencies, and future directions.
It was an unique opportunity as well as experience. It was the culmination of over a decade long collaboration between STIMS Institute, IIT- Madras, several industry partners as well as support from Govt. of India. The presentations covered two themes:
Substantial collaborative work has progressed inside of India for more than a decade now. This is a remarkable demonstration of success in   Industry/Academia collaboration, much sought after by Industries, Academia and funding agencies from the Govt. in all nations across the globe.
The secret for success can be summatized as a relentless emphasis on System Thinking and Transformational Skills with a determined focus on End-to-End Innovation!
This joint key note talk was presented in two parts by an academic leader with hands on experience in real world innovation and the Knowledge-Integration expertise promoted by the STIMS Institute.

Part 1:   Prof. Babu: Real life experience – home grown success in  Industry/academia collaboration, which is now seen as the successfully established Advanced Manufacturing Technology Development Center (AMTDC) located at the IIT Research Park, Taramani, Chennai, Tamil Nady, India.
https://stimsinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/copen13_nitc_final-1-prof.-babu.pdf

Part 2:   Dr. Krishnamoorthy (Subbu) Subramanian: Origins and Strategy (based on over   40 years of experience in inter-industry and   Industry / Academia Collaboration). — Strategies for End-to-End Innovation -“System Thinking” and “Transformational Skills”
https://stimsinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/copen-13-key-note-paper-final.pdf

Few images from this event and presentations are included below. We thank the conference organizers, academia and industry partners as well as industry consortium represented by IMTMA and also the fiunding agencies from the Government of India. Special thanks to Mr. N.K. Dhand, Chairman, Micromatic Grinding Technology Ltd. (MGTL) and Mr. Mohanram, adviser, Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers Association (IMTMA) for their unstincting support for this decade long collaboration and outcome.

This successful model, for industry/academia collaboration at AMTDC has also been implemented earlier as an inter-industry collaborative effort inside the industry, by Dr. Subramanian through his industrial working career. We hope there will be more efforts to replicate this successful model and its outcomes by many in the Academia/Industry and Govt. agencucies.

Advanced Manufacturing Technology Development Center (AMTDC) https://amtdc.org/