CHAPTER 5

Is It Possible for Everyone to Be an Entrepreneur?

Jim Spohrer

Abstract

The popular press, as well as a growing number of academic publications, investigate the premise that artificial intelligence (AI) may destroy more jobs than it creates as AI capabilities grow. Others argue that AI is more like all previous technologies and will be a powerful tool to augment human capabilities–—sometimes referred to as intelligence augmentation (IA). Consistent with the IA view, one proposed solution to the challenge of job automation/destruction is that more people may need to become entrepreneurs. The idea typically suggests that the use of low-cost digital workers (powered by AI) will help future entrepreneurs launch and scale their businesses via IA. But is it possible for everyone—or even most people—to be an entrepreneur? Probably not, but perhaps everyone can be part of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. This short chapter explores this question and the proposed solution from a service science perspective. As the cost of production drops, households will be able to meet more of their needs locally, leading to an increase in family-owned farms, factories, and professional service centers. As markets for personal data emerge, there will be benefits for individuals to incorporate.

Introduction: Motivations and Goals

In service research literature, there are a growing number of articles about the future impact of AI. The goal of this short chapter is to highlight a few items in service research literature, and then suggest future research directions. For example, Huang and Rust (2018) develop a theory of AI job replacement based on four intelligences (mechanical, analytical, intuitive, and empathetic), and suggest public policy to deal with this transformation is needed. Ostrom, Fotheringham and Bitner (2018) suggest barriers to the acceptance of AI in service encounters, noting especially the challenges of privacy concerns, trust, and perceptions of “creepiness.” Both papers suggest that an extended adjustment period will be required as AI permeates an increasing range of roles and interactions in business and society.

Entrepreneurship and Individuals Incorporating

Ng (2018a) suggests that AI will cause a shift toward more entrepreneurship, specifically:

We propose that the rise of technology, strongly correlated with more gig workers and the rise of entrepreneurialism is not a coincidence, but a subtle trend where the global labour force attempts to “corporatize” itself that is, worker-becoming-a-firm that is owner managed, either through independent contracting or entrepreneurship, in the effort to increase opportunities for acquiring more resources, whether financial, human or social capital.

Furthermore, in Ng (2018b) the ability to monetize personal data in an emerging AI-powered marketplace implies that everyone has something to sell and a route to market for digital goods. The benefits of selling assets as a corporation versus as an individual are also explored in these papers.

Rouse and Spohrer (2018) argue that the drop in the cost of digital workers will also lead to an increase in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial activities. Spohrer (2016) argues that the fiduciary responsibility of business and governments to lower the cost of production will cause a transformation in which employees will become ecosystem partners, and hence will incorporate.

Service Science and Service Systems

The transformation of business and society brought on by increasing AI capabilities cannot be fully understood from any single disciplinary approach. Real-world problems rarely can be solved by applying the tools and techniques from just one discipline. However, disciplinary perspectives are important when they can be systematically integrated (Kline 1995). Service science is the study of service systems in business and society, and aims to provide a way to systematically integrate a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. More specifically, service science is defined as an emerging transdiscipline that studies the evolving ecology of nested, networked service system entities, including their capabilities, constraints, rights, and responsibilities, especially their value co-creation and capability co-elevation interactions, as well as governance mechanisms (Maglio and Spohrer 2008; Spohrer et al. 2013). Service systems are defined as dynamic configurations of resources (people, technology, information, and organizations) interconnected internally and externally by value propositions to other service system entities (Spohrer et al. 2007, 2008). Service system entities include individual people, businesses, universities, cities, states, nations, and other legal entities with capabilities, constraints, rights, and responsibilities (Spohrer and Maglio 2009). Service science is sometimes referred to as service science, management, engineering, design, arts, and public policy, to highlight the range of diverse disciplines it draws on, but does not replace the need for any of these (Spohrer et al. 2012, 2014). Legal entities (with rights and responsibilities) competing for collaborators exist in a constantly evolving ecology, and one in which AI systems are becoming actors (Spohrer et al. 2014, 2015, 2017, 2019). Service science is based on the world view known as the service dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch 2004, 2011, 2016). Service science also has a pedagogical component aimed at teaching “T-shaped” adaptive innovators (entrepreneurs) about the evolving ecology of service system entities (Donforio 2010; Spohrer 2016; Moghaddam et al. 2018).

Concluding Remarks

The challenge in this transformation is that there are a lot of smart ideas, but translating these ideas into a realistic life experience for society will be hard work. For example, Carter (2018) wrote:

There are a lot of smart people at MIT and around Boston working on technologies such as lidar that make driverless cars possible. I always say to these people, “Save a little bit of your innovative energy for the following challenge: How about the carless driver? What is to become of the tens of thousands of truck, taxi, and car drivers whose jobs are disrupted?” For these drivers, this unstoppable transition will be like the farm-to-factory transition. We owe it to them to make sure it all comes out well.

There is some hope, however, as evidenced in virtual and online game worlds. Bainbridge (2019, forthcoming) explores the online game world as a source of cultural change from the bottom up, and notes that:

Computer-controlled manufacturing technologies, combined with information technologies capable of supporting new forms of social organization, have the potential to take humanity far beyond the industrial revolution, to an economy in which many products of value in daily life are produced again locally in small workshops.

Now with modern technology we can miniaturize and more fully automate the family farm and factory, for example:

1. Harvesting protein from the air: https://vttresearch.com/media/news/protein-produced-with-electricity-to-alleviate-world-hunger
2. Creating an artificial leaf: https://technologyreview.com/s/601641/a-big-leap-for-an-artificial-leaf/
3. Robotic recycling: https://www.recyclingproductnews.com/article/27382/ai-powered-robotic-waste-sorting-system-installed-at-zanker-recycling-facility http://service-science.info/archives/4525
4. 3D-printed meat: https://cnet.com/news/3d-printed-meat-its-whats-for-dinner/
5. Nearly limitless geothermal energy under every farm: http://thinkgeoenergy.com/could-a-new-approach-to-thermal-conductivity-revolutionise-geothermal/
6. Starting a revolution in drilling technology: https://investors.com/politics/commentary/the-shale-revolution-is-a-made-in-america-success-story/
7. Inventing better drilling technology for geothermal, etc: https://mercurynews.com/2017/11/22/elon-musks-earth-drilling-project-is-as-boring-as-ever/
8. Revisiting Jefferson’s idea for a highly productive local farm that provides for the household: http://ushistory.org/us/20b.asp
9. Creating a secure and educated society through job training in the military: https://brookings.edu/experts/john-r-allen/
10. And interconnect the youth of the world more rapidly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_service http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

We need smarter/wiser service systems in the era of AI (Spohrer et al 2017) and the interconnected individual (Hasting and Saperstein 2018). This short chapter has just scratched the surface in exploring some service research literature related to the question, “is it possible for everyone to be an entrepreneur?”

References

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Carter, A. 2018. “Ideas America Needs to Align Technology With a Public Purpose: Disruptive Innovations Won’t Produce a Better Society Unless We Work to Contain their Harms and Spread their Benefits.” Ideas from Former U.S. Secretary of Defense. The Atlantic. Nov 25. URL: https://theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/mark-zuckerberg-missed-opportunity/
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Donofrio, N., C. Sanchez, and J. Spohrer. 2010. “Collaborative Innovation and Service Systems.” In Holistic Engineering Education: Beyond Technology, eds. D. Grasso and M. Brown Burkins, 243–69. New York: Springer.

Hastings, H., and J. Saperstein. 2018. “The Interconnected Individual: Seizing Opportunity in the Era of AI, Platforms, Apps, and Global Exchanges.” In Service Systems and Innovations in Business and Society Collection. Business Expert Press.

Huang, M.H., and R.T. Rust. 2018. “Artificial Intelligence in Service.” Journal of Service Research 21, no. 2, 155–172.

Kline, S.J. 1995. Conceptual Foundations for Multidisciplinary Thinking. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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Moghaddam, Y., H. Demirkan, and J. Spohrer. 2018. “T-Shaped Professionals: Adaptive Innovators.” In Service Systems and Innovations in Business and Society Collection. Business Expert Press.

Ng, I.C.L. 2018a. “Mimicking Firms: Future of Work and Theory of the Firm in a Digital Age.” https://warwick.academia.edu/IreneNg

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