Reinvention of businesses. Natural Intelligence technology. Alexander Blinkov

many subsystems are just as precisely involved in their struggle for survival and evolution: the origin and disappearance of species, populations, peoples, states… And of course, businesses!

      Progress, therefore, is not at all an optimistic process of endless and unrestrained improvement of everything and everything. But only a chain of stages necessary for the survival of any active systems in the face of ever- increasing resource hunger. A chain of alternating stages of adaptation – adaptation, and bifurcation – rebirth.

      The principle of minimum dissipation (scattering) of energy, as Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR Nikita Nikolayevich Moiseev (1917—2000) suggested calling it the compass of global development in the world of active systems. In the chaos of competition and selection, the structures that make the most efficient use of fading resources win.

      «Dissipation of energy is the transition of part of the energy of ordered processes into the energy of disordered processes, and ultimately into heat.»

      Homo sapiens (reasonable man) as a biological species, unlike others, ceased to develop immediately upon its appearance. What’s the matter? Everything, the end of development? No, just with the emergence of consciousness, development was transferred to the area of the technosphere – to the area of creating a protective shell around itself, a «fur coat», the so-called «second nature». Machines, mechanisms, technologies – these are all tools that allow a reasonable person to exist more and more efficiently. And the very existence in terms of the creation and use of technology gives rise to the economy, special ways of managing the economy, trade,.. business, finally.

      Thus, the global synergetic process is a series of continuous complication of currently existing systems:

      • living beings have come a long way from the simplest organisms to very complex ones, to mammals, to «reasonable man» as a result;

      • technologies born by a thinking being – man, are continuously becoming more complex from the simplest stone tools – to information technologies, space ships and biotechnologies;

      • and the very ways of doing business, business models, are constantly becoming more complicated: a shop in the market – a small store – a supermarket – a trading network – e-commerce – a marketplace.

      Evolution, revolution, turbulence

      Let’s take a closer look at this continuous progress in all areas. What will we notice? We have already used the combination «sequence of complications». This implies the phenomenon of some transitions – rapid, in historical terms, almost instantaneous changes. The emergence of new qualities.

      Indeed, progress is moving in leaps and bounds. Periods of calm change of some forms are replaced by moments of the emergence of others, new ones. Which can remove the former from the historical stage. How capitalist relations and states replaced feudal ones, leaving in some places the monarchs a purely decorative role. How internal combustion engines replaced steam engines. Airplanes have removed balloons and airships from the scene of serious transport. Mobile communications have taken landlines out of widespread use. The old taxi services in major cities have been largely superseded by services like Uber.

      So, periods of evolution and periods of revolutions. Prolonged calm stages, and quick qualitative upheavals.

      We are particularly interested in technological progress, as it always goes hand in hand with changes in business life. Progress is a constant process. And the technological revolution is a sharp leap in development.

      «The scientific and technological revolution is a fundamental qualitative transformation of the productive forces, a qualitative leap in the structure and dynamics of the development of the productive forces.»

      There are various ways to describe the history of leaps and bounds in technological change. Some speak of six technological revolutions in human history. Others are about the development chain: Industry 1.0, Industry 2.0, Industry 3.0, Industry 4.0.

      Still others begin the history of high-quality technological transitions from the end of the Stone Age – from the Neolithic.

      «The Neolithic revolution or neolithization is the transition of mankind from an appropriating economy

      to a manufacturing economy, which includes agricultural sub-sectors (agriculture and animal husbandry), as well as handicrafts that stand out as a separate industry.

      In any description of the chains, it is important for us to note the fact of a clear acceleration of the scientific and technological spiral of development. It turns out that each stage of calm evolution following the technological leap was about 2 times shorter than the previous one.

      You can ask questions about the dates in Table 1 – most likely, they are simply adjusted to the doubling pace model, you can argue about the significance of certain scientific discoveries or inventions in history, but hardly anyone will dispute the very fact of accelerating scientific and technological progress.

      Table 1. Acceleration of scientific and technological progress

      And today we exist in an era of technological turbulence – it is no longer possible to talk about years or months between jumps – now they happen all the time: high-speed Internet in mobile communications, cloud computing, GPS, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and drones, generative neural networks – these transitions fundamentally change capabilities of modern technologies and products based on them, and do it continuously.

      The business sector has become just as turbulent. New technologies are continuously bringing new service delivery models to the fore. Free online trading to replace brokerage houses. Ordering through the application and delivery is a replacement for going to the store. Affordable taxi at the touch of a smartphone to change the search for a car on the street or order by phone. Traditional businesses are rapidly being replaced by new, more innovative, and usually more global ones. And often these new ones, not having time to earn the title of «traditional», give way to even newer and more modern ones.

      The pace picks up sharply. Futurologists warn that over the next 10 years, humanity will have to go through as much change as it has experienced in a thousand past ones.

      So what happens? What does this mean for us?

      First. Progress was not at all an optimistic triumph of pure knowledge. But just a way to survive. A means of struggle, in particular, the struggle for markets, if we look at the economy.

      Second. This requires the attention of any entrepreneur – progress in business, in business has become so rapid that no one can dream of building a quiet, solid family business. Pass it on to your children, who will pass it on to their grandchildren. On the contrary, you have to be prepared for the fact that any business you start will not be durable. That in your life you will have to do many different things, master different professions or start different business projects, develop different products. Only change is permanent.

      Third. Progress, the process of global self-organization is not only the birth of new structures, but also the disappearance, death of the old ones. Any structure of human society, be it an ethnic group, a state, a technological order or a separate company, has its own moment of birth. But the moment of death is the same. No system is permanent. Companies, businesses are exactly the systems in which we are honored to work, or even these are our projects that we ourselves have created and are developing. Why are they mortal? How are they dead? Can I, with my business, get out of this «wheel of samsara» – an endless chain of deaths and births? (Spoiler – you won’t be able to get out, but you need to be able to transform, reinvent your affairs. Then rebirth will not be a mortal enemy, but your ally.)

      Life cycle

      The