Clive Whincup (CIO, Westpac)
A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a lunch hosted by the ACS Foundation where Clive Whincup, CIO Westpac spoke about Future Tech. Firstly, this was the first time I had met and heard Clive talk – I was surprised to find out he was a fellow Northern Englishman and instantly associated with his analogies and sense of humour. Clive is a self-admitted geek and future gazer – in addition to being a cynic of those who purport to be predictors of the future.
He started with a reference to Gartner’s hype cycle and the likelihood of their predictions being at best 5% correct. Not that they were wrong in what they thought would happen but more that they and others underestimate the impact of certain technologies. A great example is the general underestimation of the impact of the Internet – potentially one of the reasons why the dot-com bubble burst in the early 2000’s.
Clive referenced the start of his career when technology was something you couldn’t have a conversation with outside of the industry – mainly because nobody could understand it. This changed when in 1996 Clive’s mother called him to ask if he knew Bill Gates and the fact that he was the richest man in the world, and he works in IT. When your mother knows about a technology leader it shows that society is changing in it’s views on the importance of technology. He then referred back to the launch of the iPad and how people wanted one but didn’t know why – both this and mobile computing in general is so enticing for everyday consumers. They’re simple to use, (relatively) simple to write apps and simple to take with you. This simplicity is something that will challenge us more as technology becomes more powerful, will we get to the point where it’s beyond the capability of man and we will need computers to define the future? Watson (a super computer developed by IBM) is being used in American hospitals to diagnose illnesses – it’s 95% as accurate as a doctor with 7 years experience. The only challenge is that Watson is a heuristic system that relies on who is teaching it. There comes a point when human beings can no longer teach computers we will likely get to a point when machines learn from machines.
I hope to still be alive when all of this is reality….oh hang on, it already is!
