AI isn't Skynet
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Terminator 2 was just about the height of cinema for this 80s baby. It was my first R rated movie, and the visual effects were absolutely stunning. Today everyone is used to 4K this and HD that, making the advances of the 80’s & 90’s seem almost silly.
By contrast in 1991 when the T-1000 WALKED THROUGH METAL BARS, it was a revolution in cinema and it blew the minds of kids everywhere. How James Cameron managed to make Robert Patrick look like the embodiment of mercury, I still don’t really understand.
Over the last 18 months you would have thought Skynet was active given the number of popular references to it, all do the rise of Nvidia, OpenAI & chatGPT. AI is cool all, but have you actually used it?
I have used it quite a bit and I have to tell you, while it is pretty stinking cool for some things it isn’t going to bring the world crashing down. Some examples:
- Aggregating data across multiple sites is impressive, but AI is notoriously inaccurate. That’s because it has no effective way of ranking the value or importance of information
- AI image creators can create some mind-blowing images but when I used 6 of them, the images were awesome but not a single one could spell ‘Leadership’ correctly
- People keep using the term ‘generative’ but don’t understand the difference with ‘creative’. ChatGPT doesn’t create information or really even evaluate it.
As an example, here's an image I created with DALL-E. Umm. Look at the faces. They are terrifying. I tried multiple other sites. All were similarly...weird.
But apart from terrifying images reminiscent of The Ring - these AI tools take text based input and then average it.
Hold on.
Go back.
Read that again.
They average WORDS.
You may recall elementary school mathematics, in which it was explained that to create an average you need numbers. Averaging words is nonsensical, which is exactly what happens if you use AI and don’t edit the content. Nonsense.
Now listen, you may sit there and think “Adam, I can’t believe you are opposed to AI” or “Adam you’re an idiot, the machines are going to take all our jobs”. It’s not that I’m opposed to AI or that I’m an idiot (I mean, I may be an idiot but we can debate that later).
If you look at history this sort of thing has happened time and time again:
The assembly line
Tractors
Computers
The Internet
They all posed an existential threat to the world as it was.
Every time we adapted.
Our capability improved.
We increased productivity.
Humans ‘evolved’ faster than the impact of the changing landscape.
The question for each of us is: What does that adaptation, improvement, productivity growth and “evolution” look like for our daily life?
Here are a couple of my thoughts:
Prove the value of discernment
AI shows over and over again that it can’t discern fact from fiction. It relies on training from humans to actually comprehend the truth of something.
Get good at discerning good vs bad, right vs wrong, accurate vs inaccurate, and actual news from clickbaity headlines. Then speak articulately about those things.
The bots can pump out a huge VOLUME of content, but the quality is quite low comparatively.
Integrate AI Into Your Daily Work
AI is going to change the world, just like countless technological innovations have before. The Luddites attempted to halt progress by smashing automatic looms in the 1800s. We still have looms but the Luddites died out long ago.
In every technology disruption the ‘winners’ are the people that integrate ahead of the curve. Finance professional that embraced excel leapt ahead of competitors. Marketers that tested online marketing outran their peers. Figure out ways to use AI today - not because it’s perfect. Figure out so you are ahead of the curve.
Lean on Your Humanity
Fundamentally, AI is trying to mimic human thought. Conveniently, you happen to be a human already. AI is great at taking big data sets or pieces of information, categorizing it, and then presenting it. As a result, this is a skill of diminishing importance.
Increasingly important is the ability to take that information and form a compelling and persuasive narrative that layers human discernment & knowledge onto it.
Want to discuss the topic more?
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Keep Learning, Leading & Growing -
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Adam Malone 📬
The Sometimes Tenacious Founder
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