🌊 In 1999, I was using neural networks to catch illegal gold miners in the Amazon.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
Satellites were scanning stretches of jungle for chemical signatures — specific metals, compounds being dumped into rivers. Aerial photography was tracking deforestation patterns: makeshift landing strips cut into the rainforest for small planes supplying illegal operations.
All of that data fed into a neural network that aggregated signals from multiple sources, compared patterns, and flagged anomalies.
When it found something, we’d send planes to photograph the area — vehicles, people, license plates. Then a ground team would go in.
🦑 We called it “territorial control.” Nobody called it AI.
That was 26 years ago.
I think about that system a lot lately.
Because what people describe as the next wave of enterprise AI — companies building a complete graph of every function, every process, every workflow — is exactly what that system was doing. Just for a stretch of jungle instead of a balance sheet.
The idea isn’t new. What’s new is that it’s now available to every company, not just governments and mining conglomerates with satellite contracts.
The question isn’t “should we map our operations into an AI-readable graph?” That’s already decided.
The question is who builds that map first — you, or your competitor.
What does your company’s operational graph look like today?