Making Peace with Generative AI
Geoffrey Moore
Author, speaker, advisor, best known for Crossing the Chasm, Zone to Win and The Infinite Staircase. Board Member of nLight, WorkFusion, and Phaidra. Chairman Emeritus Chasm Group & Chasm Institute.
Anyone who has used Chat GPT or any of its cousins will testify to its astonishing ability to provide valuable responses to virtually any query.? This is hardly a threat—indeed, it is a boon.? So, what are we worrying about?
Well, there is the issue of veracity, of course, and it is true, GPT-enabled assistants can indeed make mistakes.? But, come on—humans don’t?? We are not looking for gospel truth here.? We want highly probable, highly informed answers to questions where we need guidance, and it is clear that GPT-enabled applications are outstanding at meeting this need, for at least three reasons.? They are remarkably well-informed.? They are available 24/7 on demand with no hold time.? And they have infinite patience.? So, let’s not kid ourselves.? We are massively better off for their emergence on the scene.
What we should be worrying about, on the other hand, is their impact on jobs to be done, employment, and career development.? A simple way to think about this is that for any of us to earn money, we have to release some form of trapped value.? A bank clerk helps a customer get access to the trapped value in their savings account.? A bus driver helps a passenger cope with their trapped value by transporting them to the location where they need to be.? A lawyer helps a client get access to trapped value by constructing a contract that meets their needs while protecting against risk.? A teacher helps a student access trapped value by helping her solve problems she couldn’t handle before.? The principle applies to every job.? All systems have points of trapped value, and all jobs are organized around releasing and capturing that value.?
Now, let’s introduce generative AI.? All of a sudden, a whole lot of trapped value that funded a whole lot of jobs can now be released for free (or virtually for free).? Those jobs can be protected in the short term but not forever.? In other words, the environment really has changed, and we must assess our new circumstances or fall behind.? This is Darwinism at work.? Evolution never stops.? It can’t.? As long as there is change, there will be dislocation, which in turn will stimulate innovation.? That’s life.
But here’s the good news.? The universe can never eliminate trapped value, it can only move it from place to place.? That is, there are always emergent problems to solve, always new opportunities to capitalize on, because every system always traps value somewhere.? What Darwinism requires is that we detect the new value traps and redirect our activity to engage with them.?
Publicly funded agencies sometimes interpret this as a mandate for training programs, but we have to be careful here.? Training works well for disseminating established skills that address known problems.? It does not work well, however, where the problems are still being determined and the skills are as yet undeveloped.? Novelty, in other words, demands creativity.? It is simply not negotiable.
领英推荐
Getting back to the impact of generative AI, we should understand that it is an advisory technology.? It is not automation.? That is, it is not eliminating the need for human beings to make judgment calls.? Rather, it is accelerating the preparation for so doing and framing the options in ways that make decision-making more straightforward.? By solving for the old value traps, it is giving us the opportunity to up our game.? It’s our job to step up to add net new value to the equation.
The best way to do this is to ferret out the emerging new value traps.? Who is the customer now?? What is the bottleneck that is holding them back?? How could that bottleneck be broken open?? What is the reward for so doing?? These are the fundamental questions that drive any business model.? We know how to do this.? It’s just that we have been riding on the inertia of the past set of solutions for so long we may have atrophied in some of the muscles we need now.? One thing we need not worry about is the universe running out of trapped value.? If you are ever in doubt, just read the day’s headlines and be reassured.? The world needs our help.? Any tool that helps us do our part better is a blessing.
That’s what I think.? What do you think?
Actor | Freelance Drama Facilitator | Marketing Geek
1 年Interesting! Ultimately Ai is a productivity tool that provides auxiliary support to people and businesses. https://aitrendsindia.com/artificial-intelligence/the-rise-of-generative-ai-revolutionizing-industries-and-empowering-startups/
I like the analogy of flexing your muscles and trying to identify gaps and/or new value in the Generative AI space, and solving for those customer problems, specially with a Risk mindset given the emerging nature of Generative AI.
GM Operations and Finance | Corporate Trainer | Higher Education Faculty | E-learning | 15+ Years in Education, Training and Consulting
1 年Insightful. The idea that trapped value is always there and simply shifts from place to place really resonates.
Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) and Generative AI/GPT for Salesforce
1 年Our early AI deployments were advisory in nature. However, our clients lately are confirming that AI prompts are 95% correct in their expected transformations; which enables a lot of automation possibilities. Examples include: * Auto-approving uploaded files that semantically contain required content * Auto-scheduling and notifying workers about shift changes These are repeatable tasks and processes that run 24/7. Something a 9-to-5 human does not necessarily want to do.
AI Consultant || MIT Alumni || Entrepreneur || Open Source Project Owner || Blogger
1 年Agree. Generative AI is an advisory and enabling technology for humans, not a replacement.