Run Simple? Run Tricky!

For decades, computer science has been promising us machines that think and act autonomously. This field of research is known as "artificial intelligence" (AI).

The official results from universities and industry laboratories are sobering: at best, AI has reached the level of five-year-old children - even if some programs play chess very well. But that's another story.

Due to an extremely unfortunate circumstance, the industry's secret software plans have now been uncovered. The misfortune apparently began at Volkswagen in the USA.

An authority discovered efficient and sophisticated software in VW diesel engines. An autonomously operating program uses driving parameters to detect whether the car is on a test bench.

So when the vehicle is under observation, it behaves cleanly and as specified in the data sheets. Back on the road, it is once again the reckless, uncouth dirt slinger. This makes driving fun again.

The elegant thing about the software is its built-in cleverness - you could also call it artificial intelligence. Once programmed, VW engineers can release their diesel cars onto the road and be sure that the engine will keep a clean slate if the worst comes to the worst.

But who invented this bimodal software? To whom does the honor belong? Behind the scenes, a fierce dispute has arisen between Volkswagen and SAP, as SAP claims that it has always used this bimodal mode - stability and agility - in its own benchmarks.

It is a competition between the server, operating system and database manufacturers. Which configuration delivers the best performance for SAP software?

The SAP benchmarks are of course anything but realistic. Here, people cheat and cheat as much as the IT toolbox will allow!

Top performance is then achieved under laboratory conditions, for which there are official SAP certificates. Of course, all VW diesel engines also have valid environmental and other certificates that attest to the cars' correct behavior.

The situation at SAP in Walldorf is therefore quite comparable to the scandal at VW in Wolfsburg. But who invented it? Who deserves the credit for this autonomous AI software?

The SAP Hana database will continue to drive AI forward. The SAP software already decides what is important and unimportant and classifies data into hot (in-memory computing), warm, cold and cool.

The user stands in front of it in amazement and tries to remember the words of SAP CEO Bill McDermott: Run Simple.

But that's the wrong answer. At Sapphire Orlando 2016, the entire SAP Executive Board will present the AI update and then it's time to Run Tricky!

As with the SAP benchmarks and the VW diesel engines, whatever is possible is allowed - the engineer's heart rejoices.

From "Run Simple" to "Run Tricky" is only a small step for VW and SAP, but a big disaster for drivers and the SAP community.

It's still not clear who invented it. Regardless, it works and from now on the motto in Walldorf is: Run Tricky!