ABSTRACT
The great digital convergence runs through the internet, the mother of all technological threads, the virtual tapestry upon which are inscribed the patterns of transformation. The tapestry is woven from five main threads offered in several hues: the power chip, artificial intelligence, distributed ledgers, the energy lattice, and the internet of things. The relentless advances in chip design has powered the third industrial revolution and doing the same for the Symbiocene. The science of “artificial intelligence” began in the 1950s and has evolved by fits and starts along dramatically different theoretical directions. Five application subsets are associated with artificial intelligence: big data, materials, medicine, complexity, and job automation. Functional sentience captures the essence of the transformative character of the Symbiocene age. A successful digital management transformation cannot be brought to fruition without understanding a firm’s relationship to its holobiome, as a consequence of the first digital paradox.
