No activity takes place in isolation, but in the market space in which it unfolds. And if we look not at the objects themselves, but at their interaction in this space, we see that the characteristics of this space themselves take on a special role. For example, you won't be able to go sledging on water or flying in the air - the conditions of the physical universe won't allow you to do that.
Such restrictive conditions exist in any field of business, whether the entrepreneur is aware of them or not. In order to be possible in any field, a certain degree of harmony with the environment is necessary. For example, it is not possible to build the foundations of a house in the air; such an activity is incompatible with this type of environment. Thus, the evaluation of data always takes place within certain limits. And only once these boundaries are known is it possible to structure the data, establish relationships between them and build a holistic knowledge system.
Incidentally, it is this insight that underlies the phenomenon we call industrial revolutions. It is simply that one knowledge system becomes so much superior to another that there is an explosion in efficiency and productivity. Knowledge evolution itself is characterised by the gradual introduction of new constraints. This factor has long been a focus of attention. For example, clay firing technology determines very precisely which clay is suitable and which is not, which dyes are suitable and which are not.
The more precise the knowledge becomes, the more strictly it is regulated by various restrictions and prohibitions. A similar process takes place in sport. In football, for example, there are strict rules that restrict the arbitrary actions of athletes and require 100% compliance with the rules. This helps to increase the scope for improvisation. Football, thanks to its strict rules, such as the ban on handball, excels in its informativeness, complexity and unpredictability, and often outperforms other sports in these parameters.
When we analyse the performance of successful people or companies, we often run the risk of seeing something completely different from what has actually led to their success. More often than not, we see the opportunities available to them, but overlook the constraints (rules) they have accepted.
Here are some known facts from Michael Jordan's life:
He practised for several hours every day.
Played for the Chicago Bulls.
Wore Nike trainers.
He was a brave man.
Wore much longer shorts than other players.
Someone who doesn't like to go into too much detail might say: "If I practice every day for several hours, play in Chicago, shave my hair, wear Nike and long shorts, I will play like Michael Jordan!" But what if the real reason for his success is left behind? How to see and, even more, measure that reason? In Michael's case, we also have many unknowns, in particular, what role did Coach Phil play in his success? How did the basketball player plan his day? How did he choose the criteria for evaluating the game? How did the people closest to him influence his success? What character traits helped him? Bidd in turn might say: "Do what Michael Jordan did and we will become successful players!" Let's assume that all the factors listed above did play a role in the success of this American basketball player. But just because these things are obvious does not make them the main reason for Michael's success. There are probably many other things in his life, in his training and in his games that are hidden from the public eye.
All of this together - both the visible and the things left behind the scenes - is the context that made Michael Jordan Michael Jordan. In this context, he had access to a certain set of key resources and a system of constraints (rules) on the use of these resources, unknown to us, which Michael was able to turn into opportunities and thus succeed.
Thus, we could argue that the success of any business depends on three key factors:
The entrepreneur's intentions.
The resources available to him.
The rules governing the use of those resources (the constraint system).
This view leads us to a certain paradigm shift - we stop looking at business as a mechanical activity and start looking at it as a system.
Entrepreneurship as a system
Any system is made up of elements that interact with each other to form a whole that is different from the simple sum of its parts. Aristotle also noticed this: "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts". Take a car, for example. It consists of a chassis, an engine, wheels, a fuel tank, a steering wheel, a gearbox, etc. But by putting all these parts together, a new quality is created in the car that the individual parts of the system do not have. It is this new system quality that makes a car a valuable product. The customer is not interested in the individual parts of the car (steering wheel, wheel or headlight), but in the ability of the car (as a system) to drive safely and comfortably on the road. In other words, the well-coordinated working together of the components of a system leads to a fundamentally new level of quality (and therefore value) for the whole system (the car) that is far more important to the customer than the sum of all the components of that system.
With such a systematic approach, the first question that arises for the entrepreneur is: "Where is the boundary of this business system?"
What has no boundary has no structure. And what has no structure has no function. Any function without structure is an unattainable absolute in action - it cannot be found in real life.
Artificial intelligence
The very emergence of artificial intelligence raised the question of its correlation with natural intelligence. This will lead to a new division of labour: artificial intelligence will deal with computation; natural intelligence will focus on understanding.
Understanding data is impossible if it cannot be placed in a specific context. Kaplan and Henlein define AI as "the ability of a system to correctly interpret external data, learn from that data, and use that knowledge to achieve specific goals and objectives through flexible adaptation". Looking at the structure of AI in terms of the limits of its use, a key thesis could be that the limits of AI's usefulness are determined by the limits of the host's natural intelligence.
Let us illustrate this with a simplified example. Let's take a very smart map on a smartphone that can help us get directions to a destination. But what if the phone cannot pinpoint our current location? Now the smart system doesn't know where we are and from where exactly it needs to build a route. Such a system becomes useless.
A similar situation in business is that the entrepreneur himself does not know exactly where he stands in relation to the market space in which he operates.
AI cannot truly empathise, get angry, admire... It can only imitate these expressions and feelings. These considerations will also lead to the entrepreneur not knowing the function and structure of his activity (not to be confused with the structure of the organisation). The operational structure refers to the market space and customers, while the organisational structure refers to the methods of division of labour and coordination within the organisation. In this case, there is only a small chance that sophisticated intellectual tools, including artificial intelligence, will really help, because all these activities will be aimed at answering one question: where am I? In any intelligent system, two points are needed to calculate a route - the start and the end point of the journey. If the first point is unknown, the route will remain unknown. Returning to artificial intelligence, the limits of its usefulness are determined by its ability to compute. Artificial intelligence is much better at computation than natural intelligence. But when we cross the computational threshold and reach the point of being able to be aware of and understand our surroundings, then AI's capacity quickly runs out and natural intelligence gets to work. I like the metaphor of the caveman who claims that Zippo lighters are safe. Imagine that this caveman found a Zippo lighter from the future! The concept of a modern lighter would have been incomprehensible to the caveman because his mind would not have been able to grasp the idea of lighting a fire without using rocks. Trying to use two Zippo lighters as stones to light a fire would probably end in failure. It would be difficult for a caveman to understand how this unfamiliar object could create a fire, as it looks completely different from anything he has encountered before, and he would not even try to understand how these lighters work. If a person does not know that lighters exist and why they are needed, then artificial intelligence will not help him light a fire, because he will not be able to describe and understand the categories we are discussing here...
Artificial intelligence does not survive in the usual sense of the word, so it may have morals, rules and laws to make decisions, but it cannot make judgements about human survival because it does not know what life is: the feelings we experience when we have a baby, communicating with friends, meeting after a long separation, the death of a loved one, etc. Artificial intelligence cannot truly sympathise, be angry, admire... It can only imitate these expressions and feelings. The limit of AI's application is well before understanding - it is limited by its ability to compute. But in terms of calculation, AI is an indispensable tool for humans - like scissors for a tailor. The two types of intelligence - natural intelligence and artificial intelligence - are interlinked, just as in the scissors metaphor. A pair of scissors is a simple device - two blades, two rings and a rivet in the middle. The two parts of the scissors cut everything in between. The blades themselves do not harm each other and can do nothing without each other. But the blades are connected to each other by something small and inconspicuous - a rivet. If this rivet is removed, the two parts of the scissors lose all their abilities; they no longer cut anything, either together or separately. This example illustrates the idea that in every field of activity there is something very important but usually overlooked. Something around which the whole activity is centred. And this someone is first and foremost the entrepreneur himself, with his world view, upbringing, education, intellect and so on. This is the one without whom all activity loses all meaning and becomes another squirrel on the wheel, running vigorously but never getting anywhere. In this sense, man himself has two servants: natural intelligence and artificial intelligence. And when the scissors start to command the tailor, we have a problem with the tailor, with his state of mind.