Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

The Big Picture: Our Big ‘Why’ in the Age of AI

With advanced technology, Tesla, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI can quickly transform life as we know it. Several notable artificial intelligence (AI) studies, including the 2024 McKinsey Global Survey on AI, have offered insights into AI’s adoption, impact, and trajectory. The McKinsey study revealed that AI adoption continues to grow, with 50% of respondents reporting using AI in at least one business area. Other key findings were:

• The average number of AI capabilities used by organizations doubled from 1.9 in 2018 to 3.8 in 2024
• Robotic process automation and computer vision remain the most commonly deployed AI capabilities
• 63% of respondents expect their organizations' AI investment to increase over the next three years¹

AI is driving demand for PCBs across multiple industries for servers and applications. We must stay on top of these advancements and understand what it means for doing business in the PCB space. While AI is changing the path and speed of growth in the PCB industry, we are still humans doing business with other humans. Therefore, to understand AI’s full impact on the industry, we must examine how AI growth affects us overall.

The big question is: How will we handle this rapid progress? When AI, or robots, are doing things that are meaningful to us, how will we then find meaning in life? What is our purpose? Philosophers, psychologists, and researchers have asked this since before AI, machines, and robots, but these questions are now even more critical for businesses and individuals.

My Big ‘Why’
When you first meet someone, they’ll often ask, “What do you do?” The real question should be, “Why do you do what you do?” My answer is: “I do what I do to achieve some level of happiness by helping people. My purpose is to help people, to work for the world.” I started my first business in 1982. I’ve since hired thousands of people and legally brought about 100 people from Scotland, India, Australia, Mexico, Canada, and China to the United States, because our country was the beacon for the world, the place for business and growth.

At a recent event hosted by one of my first clients, I saw Bala, my first employee. I was moved when I reflected on the difference we had made in each other’s lives. Bala began as an intern and is like a brother to me now. He eventually became a partner at my company. When I attended his daughter’s wedding, I saw a generation of children who I had influenced by helping Bala and his family move from India, along with many others hired by our software company. It was very touching to see the results of creating jobs that were helping generations of people years later. When we discover our purpose is helping others, it returns to us tenfold. True service, working for another’s best interest, is an act that no AI or robot can replicate, nor can AI replace human connection and its generational impact. 

AI as a Tool for Connection and Research
As a tool, however, AI can help us form better connections. For example, our director of finance, Murali, in India, was sending out emails with poor English. Our CEO, Mike, would get frustrated. I reminded Mike of how Bala initially had the same problem. I asked Bala to first send me every email he wrote to a customer. I would then edit, copy, and paste it. I told Murali this time we would use AI. We had an issue with a supplier, and we needed to extend payment terms and send a new payment schedule. I showed Murali how to access ChatGPT and guided him in a prompt: “Write a professional letter to a supplier that details our payment terms.” It produced a beautiful letter within seconds. Amazed, Murali asked me, “What does this mean for humans?” While that answer is still being revealed, in this instance, it helped improve communication between people with different native languages.

Google Gemini is another AI writer that can perform extensive research (especially the paid version). After hearing a podcaster talk about it, I tried it. I entered the prompt: “Give me a global market analysis of the PCB industry and what area one should focus on right now.” It took seven minutes, scoured 120 websites, and provided a report that you would typically hire a consulting company to build, which could have cost me $20,000. 

Why We Still Need Humans in Conjunction With AI
This showed me the power of AI tools for research. The difference between Open AI and Google is that Open AI doesn’t have access to the same content as Google, including YouTube, more search engines, etc. When I showed the research report to Murali, he said, “This is wild!” Again, he asked, “What’s going to happen to people now that AI can do this?” I said, “The Gemini report is factual, but it doesn’t have any context.” I wanted to analyze the research in the context of what we’re doing, so it still required someone who knows the industry to take that information, understand it, and recommend decisions based on the research. AI can summarize information, but it doesn’t decipher it and come up with a game plan with your specific company’s needs in mind. It won’t tell you, “Here’s what you should do with this information.”

In the past, I’ve researched industry and market trends myself. AI did an excellent job summarizing the industry, but it still can’t synthesize the research and give you a plan of attack. We still need humans to analyze, synthesize, and apply the information. We also need to ensure we are using AI safely and complying with our company’s ethical standards, our big “why.” As Lareina Yee, senior partner at McKinsey, noted in their 2024 study, “Responsible AI needs to start on day one, and there is still much work to be done in terms of education and action. It begins with a company’s values—organizations must establish clear principles for how they apply generative AI (gen AI) and set up guardrails to ensure its safe implementation.”

Valuing the Human Touch
AI also can’t do service jobs or many jobs that involve art and creativity. When we go to a concert, we don’t want to listen to a synthesizer without a musician or a DJ. The same goes for seeing a dancer perform live. Most people also don’t want to watch a sport without humans. Human touch is essential, both physically and artistically. Perhaps AI’s ability to help with the tasks it does today gives us the ability to do more creative things with our time.

In our discussion, Murali’s biggest worry was the possibility of insufficient wages or job losses. If much of your job can be done with AI, does the company need to pay you as much or hire multiple people as they might have in the past? The same concerns are happening in the software industry: Will companies need as many software engineers as before? Many AI systems can now do the job of 10 engineers—and faster. 

These fears arose when computers first came out. Bill Gates said there would be a desktop computer on every desktop in the world. People worried we would no longer need typewriters or calculators, but we have thrived and used computers to become more efficient. So far, we have adapted. Are we going to adapt fast enough for the singularity of technology advancement?

Adapting to Technological Advancements
According to Ray Kurzweil, the answer is “yes.” In his 2005 book, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, Kurzweil wrote, “The Singularity will represent the culmination of the merger of our biological thinking and existence with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but that transcends our biological roots. There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality. If you wonder what will remain unequivocally human in such a world, it’s simply this quality: Ours is the species that inherently seeks to extend its physical and mental reach beyond current limitations.”²

Our ability to reach beyond our limitations dates to cars replacing horses and the role of tractors in the agricultural revolution. Today, 3% of the world’s population feeds the other 97% because of factory farming. We have figured out (surprisingly) how to deal with these growth patterns across different industries. 

Today, there are self-driving cars, OpenAI, robotics, etc.— triangulating to a point where we could say, “Enough, I give up. The technology is better than me.” Then what will we do? We can only have so many prominent artists, so what does the average Joe do for work, or a sense of purpose? It’s a perplexing question. As AI advances, eventually we will reach the point where money matters less to our survival because AI helps us survive and does the work that humans used to do for pay. AI may become so efficient that we won’t need to worry about making money because services and food will cost less. This possibility flows well with the free market economy because we let the markets determine their destiny. Here, basic minimum wage is a government issue and could go against the free market, but in a free market, automation will win because it’s cheaper, better, and more efficient. Yet, there’s a lag between that and when we realize that money is no longer so important. That’s where there must be a bridge between not doing anything but still needing money to live.

The other outcome, which could be disastrous, is that the “haves” will have more, and the “have-nots” will have less. Then, we could face a revolution and complete chaos. During Russia’s czarist regime, the czars had everything, until, after 300 years, people finally revolted. Hopefully, we won’t see that happen in the United States. 

Embracing AI and Technological Advancements in Business
This study, as part of the larger McKinsey & Company article, shows the areas of businesses that are adopting generative AI the most. It’s vital to embrace AI and technological advancements, or we’ll be left behind. To keep people employed and enterprises continuing, we must keep learning and stay abreast of technological advancements. In my other businesses, we embrace technology at every opportunity. In one of my businesses, we offered our customers an at-home dietary test kit, and they could then receive a free consultation with a nutritionist. The kit included a personalized 60-page report with the foods the customer should and shouldn’t eat. They could then bring their questions to the nutritionist. 

My family took the test. After we received the results, I wondered if a customer felt like having Italian, Indian, or Mexican food, we could create an app that would tell them what foods they should eat and provide recipes based on their food recommendations. I created a spreadsheet for the report and then an app. We will also connect it to Instacart so they can have the ingredients delivered to their door, improving their health and saving them time. This level of rapid innovation would not have been possible without significant advancements in technology.

AI Implementation = Growth in the Global Market
We must embrace these advancements in all our businesses. If they improve our lives, make more money (enabling us to pay our people more and share the wealth with the team), and bring on more people to grow our businesses, it’s a win-win-win. A 2024 National University study predicted significant growth in the global AI market, including:

• Analysts project the global AI market to grow 33% year-over-year in 2024
• By 2030, AI will contribute $15.7 trillion to the global economy³

The biggest growth we see in the PCB industry is in the AI field. We have one customer that has grown exponentially because they positioned themselves squarely in the AI space. We feel well-positioned in this space for future growth. We’re involved in the AI supply chain by making circuit boards for companies invested in AI. Our big “why” is to help you, our customer, by remaining committed to extending our knowledge and production capabilities.

References

1. "The State of AI in Early 2024: Gen AI Adoption Spikes and Starts to Generate Value," Alex Singla,  Alexander Sukharevsky, Lareina Yee, Michael Chui, and Bryce Hall, McKinsey & Company, May 30, 2024.
2. The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, by Ray Kurzweil, New York: Viking, 2005.
3. "131 AI Statistics and Trends for 2024." National University, Feb. 23, 2024.

Mehul Davé is the chairman of Linkage Technologies.