We are in a second industrial revolution driven by computers. New AI tools are introduced every day that write business plans, draw images, and show insights.

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Copyright© Miklos Szegedi, 2023.

What changes with change is how we do business together. The first industrial age was driven by the growing access to energy through wood, whale fat, coal, and eventually oil, and nuclear power.

Computation will have its own limitations on energy. It is a zero sum game in the short term and businesses will compete for energy for computing.

Humans will compete with computing for energy. What will be the point of humans, if compute energy intake becomes lower? We will do what animals do and compete with other species and computers to evolve together.

I am close to this revolution as a user targeted by machine intelligence through social and regular media. I also saw the hard work these systems require on the other side of tech companies.

Privacy is the most important one. The Constitution protected Americans from opening up their private property to governments. We do the same today installing gigabytes of software in our living rooms, and pockets from many sources. Software vendors must respect the location of the devices. Laws, contracts, and etiquette require that we know what data is collected, where it is stored, and how we can control it.

The major use case for computers will be the support of communication for a long time. We can communicate to more people with better efficiency than ever before. The rise of radio, television and mass media had an impact on world wars, and society. Companies need to ensure that the tools are not used as a distraction.

More information helps us to make better decisions. Private information of others does not. Ethical companies collect only aggregates that are needed to lower their risks. Private information is ideally kept for a short period. Its use is delayed to a time when it does not disturb individual decisions. A display that flickers to cause distress to force buying an ice cream analyzing the eye image is against the etiquette.

Governments need to make sure that we can push the red button and turn computers off. This means that all control of computers is restricted to the local jurisdiction. Any foreign act is a breach of sovereignty and the individual rights the local laws protect.

Many states started to enforce that customers can fix their own machines. It is an important right related to constitutional law that any machine that has significant impact on the income or private property has sufficient documentation available. This is the case for machines for health, and life impact as well.

There are copyright laws. Many countries strictly enforce them. This also means that startups that create open creative commons content for generative algorithms may experience a boom. Open source standards and copyright laws help to make better decisions. The etiquette suggests to respect them.

The primary background check to do business is that somebody can participate in an interview meaning that they are not part of any restrictive action. Background checks will expand and emerge using the vast amounts of data collected. There will be so many of them that may affect the profitability of companies. Limiting opportunity comes at a price, especially if algorithms have biases.

Similarly limiting the set of companies where individuals can work is impolite. People may join social media groups, attend parties. These should not be a basis of any filtering on the job market by automation. Good economy helps the real estate markets. However, adjusting job opportunities to spark the real estate market in a region is impolite.

Many companies participate in international trade with emerging countries. Standards and labor costs differ. Fair labor is the responsibility of customers, manufacturers, and vendors altogether. It can only be protected if free speech, free press, and the rule of law is in place. Companies leveraging lower labor costs should be in favor of these to help customers make better decisions.

Many jurisdictions limit the enforcing of non-compete agreements just like my home state, California. The EU is all about free movement of labor. It is not surprising that companies from such places do well in international trade. Free environments spark creativity, lower costs, and reduce inefficiencies. Nobody should suffer, or even starve because of questionable non-compete contracts. Each contract should at least match formal contractual requirements assigning a payment to each clause.

Cryptocurrencies will probably be a major topic for a long time. Central banks and a fair banking system that follow the proven monetary standards will enjoy the benefits of limited pressure of libertarian competition, stronger currencies, and healthy uniform societies. Accredited and verifiable background checks and credit reports ensure that the labor market is efficient, and mortgages are properly priced.

Non-disclosure agreements are important to protect intellectual property. It also ensures that companies can make rational research and development decisions knowing that the fruits of their hard work is protected. Non disclosure agreements should not prevent victims from reporting crimes, or protect their individual civil liberties.

Computers do not have nationality. Many technologies follow some standards. It is as much art as science. Many company names reflect their original defense ties in their names like Intel, AMD. Programming languages may rhyme with countries distracting some people like Ruby, Rust. Most people query for Rust, when it is workday in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Technologies may reflect liberty like Linkedin, Libra. Tribalism scatters markets. It may act as licensing, or excise tax to enter such markets increasing salaries. It may also replace competition for value with racing or conflict among groups. Sometimes it is a good marketing practice. Most of the time it is unnecessary.

Contracts also must be fair. Each clause must have a matching payment. This means that people need to protect their privacy to be able to choose the work they do and the places where they spend their money. If this does not happen supply chains suffer, and inflationary pressure mounts. The pandemic time showed this.

What would you do if you saw a hundred dollar bill on the street? Would you pick it up the next day, if another one is there the next day? Corruption is a crime. However, corruption can be interpreted economically as the opposite of craftsmanship. You need to ask for a value for your money, but you also need to provide value for your income. This is the invisible hand of Adam Smith. Value will stream back to you as welfare.

Many localities have different rules. Still wiretapping is illegal or impolite in most cases. Abusive use of wiretapping and defamatory reporting may cause too much discipline, fabricated trials, and discrimination. It is good to notify what is a personal discussion, and what is considered public. Many publicly recorded sources may actually help one's career like conference talks.

Discrimination is a serious issue. Strange it is, the author thinks it will be interpreted differently in a hundred years. Men can be discriminated against in a group where the majority are men. Management may put extra pressure on them to leave, so that they can be replaced with women. Harassment may be interpreted differently by victims. A person, who is distressed, or who is suffering from insomnia may interpret things differently than one that comes back from a holiday.

Arbitrage contracts are common especially in case of cross border trade. Still, business leaders should be ready to be responsible to the court systems of both locations. It is a safe and low risk business practice not to rely on the economic rent on legal or political differences.

Psychological wellbeing will be even more important with computers around that, track, interpret, and give feedback. Organizations should ensure that they leave their members with equal or better emotional shape when they leave than they entered.

This is also true to families. Employers should ensure that the workplace stress does not affect family life, and employees have enough time to destress especially due to autonomous stressors like computers.

Giving extra time helps to resolve many team cohesion issues as a simple and common management practice. Leaving enough time to finish a project reliably is good ethics. Leaving enough time to retrospect, reiterate and learn helps long term staff to thrive.

Individual responsibility is important to train the brain. However, systems that rely on many people to double check functions before shipping a product ensures that products meet the best standards in the compute age.