Artificial Intelligence and Riding Bicycles ??

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Have you ever taught a child how to ride a bike? Do you remember the first time you learned?

I remember teaching my eldest daughter, Paige, how to ride.

One of the most challenging things to explain to someone who has never ridden a bike is how to balance. Naturally, they want to start out as slow as possible. They believe the slower they go, the more stable they will be. But you and I know that the way to be stable on a bicycle is to be moving fast enough.

It’s completely counterintuitive. It’s scary. Until that point in life, “stability” was defined entirely differently. Two feet, firmly planted on the ground. If you’ve ever watched a toddler learning to walk careen around a living room, you know that movement is not stability when you are a kid.

When Paige first started, she was tentative, slow, hesitant, and unsure. And for entirely understandable reasons – she didn’t know what she was doing. She didn’t understand the concepts and hadn’t yet developed the muscle memory that we all take for granted once we’ve learned a new skill.

“Trust me, Paigey,” I reassured her. “It doesn’t make sense to you now, but the faster you go, the more steady you will be.”?

Slowly but surely, over the course of a couple of days, that sweet girl started to get it. She understood intellectually from my instruction that the faster she went, the more steady she would be. But, she had to actually try it out to start to really start to understand the principle. And it didn’t feel good at first, but it was only then and through her persistence that she began to get the hang of it.

Today, riding a bike with dad is a joy.

What does this have to do with AI? A lot, actually.

AI and the Pace of Change

I don’t have to tell you that it has felt like the world has been speeding up for the past several years. The pace of innovations, particularly new technologies, has been increasing.?

With AI, one of the themes I’m noticing is that even the smartest, most technologically savvy people can’t predict how it will change the world.?

Headlines over the past few weeks include:?

Google CEO Sundar Pichai warns society to brace for impact of AI acceleration (CNBC)

Elon Musk and others urge AI pause, citing ‘risks to society (Reuters)

Bill Gates predicts AI will be bigger than PCs (Fortune)

The CNBC piece linked above reports on a ’60 Minutes’ interview on CBS, where he hinted that “society isn’t prepared for the rapid advancement of AI.”

The Age of Accelerations

One of the most insightful books I’ve read that predicted this topic is Thank You for Being Late by Thomas Friedman.

Published in 2016, the book makes a compelling argument that we have entered what author Thomas Friedman calls The Age of Accelerations, a period in human history where the pace of change is occurring faster than human’s ability to adapt or predict.?

While I don’t agree with everything in the book, it was ahead of its time and remains one of the most influential books I’ve ever read on the state of change in the world today. I highly recommend it.?

He describes a conversation with well-known futurist Astro Teller, CEO of “Moonshots” at Google.?

Imagine a graph with two lines. You have the rate of change on the Y-axis, and on the X-axis, we have time. The first line is a swooping exponential line that starts very flat and escalates more and more, like a hockey stick. That line represents technological change, which is accelerating.?

The second line is much more linear. It represents the rate at which humanity adapts to changes in its environment. We adapt at a more steady, constant pace.

The problem is that, as a human race, we are at an unusual place in history where the pace of change seems to be outpacing the ability of humans to adapt. We live in an era where the lines have crossed, and it can be disorienting.?

Here’s how he illustrated this concept:

In his ’60 Minutes’ interview that I referenced earlier, Google CEO Sundar Pichai referenced this idea of the pace of change outpacing humans’ ability to adapt:?

“One of the points they have made is, you don’t want to put out a tech like this when it’s very, very powerful because it gives society no time to adapt,” Pichai said.

I don’t know about you, but my first response to this idea was alarm. Then a little fear, if I’m honest. Holy crap… we’ve opened Pandora’s box. What are we going to do??

So what is one to do about this, and what can you and I as leaders do?

Let’s circle back around to riding bikes.

Dynamic Stability

Friedman proposes that one of several approaches to thriving in the Age of Accelerations can be understood by thinking about what it means to ride a bicycle.

The time of static stability has passed us by.

That does not mean we can’t have a new kind of stability, but the new kind of stability has to be dynamic stability. There are some ways of being, like riding a bicycle, where you cannot stand still, but once you are moving, it is actually easier. It is not our natural state. But humanity has to learn to exist in this state.

We’re all going to have to learn that bicycle trick.

Thomas Friedman & Astro Teller, in Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“We are all going to have to learn that bicycle trick.”

In many areas of our lives, we no longer live in an age where stability comes from standing still.?

I don’t believe every area of life is changing as fast as technology. Some areas can and should be more stable. (Truth, for example - but that’s another conversation.) But I believe this increasing pace of change is particularly true for leaders in the tools, techniques, and processes we use to accomplish our missions.?

Leaders and organizations must adapt, pivot and innovate faster and with greater frequency.?

?? Takeaway: The only way to be stable in today’s world is to keep learning, keep improving, and keep moving forward. Stability comes from forward progress, adapting our tools, techniques, and processes on an ongoing basis to leverage advances in technology.?

Learning to ride the AI bike

In many ways, I feel like I’m just starting to figure out how to ride the bike myself. My recommendation to you is to get on and start riding. Start playing with it. It will feel awkward at first, but the only way to push through and build understanding and stability is to start.

Today’s assignment

I have an assignment for you if you haven’t used AI tools yet. It will take just five minutes. There are just three easy steps.??

• Step 1: Sign onto ChatGPT at https://chat.openai.com.
• Step 2: Create an account.
• Step 3: Try asking ChatGPT a question.?

That’s it.?

If you can’t think of a good question, here are some ideas to get you started:

• “Brainstorm a list of 20 ideas about [topic].”
• “Explain [topic] in simple terms.”
• “Got any creative ideas for [an event coming up]?”
• “Help me come up with a list of 10 subject lines for an email about [describe the email].”
• “Help me write a message to [person] about [a request or a response - the more detail of what you want, the better].”

Some of my readers are further along in learning to ride the “AI bike.” If that’s you, I’d love to hear from you. How do you use AI in your day-to-day work and life? Just respond to this email.

Until next time… Surfs Up! ??

???- Dave

P.S. If you would like insights like this every week instead of just once a month, I encourage you to subscribe to The Wave Report. Every Friday, you’ll have a new report in your inbox unpacking trends and lessons you can use to apply to your leadership.

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