"People in the Middle" in the Age of AI
Nico Marzian
Business Dev & Project Manager @ EDAG Group | Driving Smart Infrastructure Transformation
A conversation with ChatGPT and a few of my thoughts so far
Somewhere around the beginning of December 2022, I stumbled upon a thread on Twitter that immediately drew my interest. It mentioned a very recent development being the hottest topic in and around Silicon Valley but that strangely did not make it to any news station in and outside of the US. This topic was, of course, ChatGPT which was now publicly available and up for testing.
So I registered, as I wanted to see for myself what the buzz was about. And my, was it a game changer which, maybe a day or a half later, eventually made the news and lead to the registrations coming to a halt for a while!
Many people had been expecting such a breakthrough coming one day in the not necessarily too far (but definitely also not too close) future and also I had some idea what it could mean for our everyday work and life. However, what has been learned since then about the protocol's abilities and the growing list of use-cases, as well as business models, was too much to process at once (I am still processing). It was clear, though, that this technology would have got a significant impact on my own profession and mission – also on the very ideas I had been developing from university until today. Not least my approach to interdisciplinary collaboration on humanity's most pressing challenges of today and tomorrow, and the concept of "People in the Middle" – very roughly, and somewhat poorly defined below:
People in the Middle are poised to be the heartbeat for large knowledge clusters in which numerous parties are wired with each other for collaboration on common or related goals. They are trained for seeing the larger picture and understanding enough of relevant detail levels to foster successful value-creation relationships beyond all kinds of borders. People in the Middle act as process moderators and intermediaries, proactively bringing together different actors with complementary skills, know-how, approaches etc. and guiding and assisting their work towards innovation, sustainability, more effectiveness and efficiency.
In the meantime I played around with ChatGPT a lot and bought myself a Plus account for higher performance and less limitations, also earlier availability of the most recent protocol version (i.e. GPT-4). And it goes without saying that I tested the above definition in an exchange with the protocol, asking it about the likelihood of "People in the Middle" indeed playing an essential role in the future. While the answer by GPT-3.5 was fully supporting the idea, asking GPT-4 lead to the more nuanced and convincing answer.
My question was: "ChatGPT, I will provide a definition of what I call "People in the Middle", (...) would you agree or disagree with the definition and the assumed necessity of having such a role in the future?"
This is nothing really surprising but nevertheless, I enjoy a good conversation and also was curious to ask more, so my reply was:
领英推荐
As you can see, I speak to ChatGPT like I would to a human. First, because once a real Artificial Intelligence truly should have come to life, it should deserve respect like life in general should – when you asked me. Second, I have always rather tended towards being a careful and anticipating person – while also having seen 'The Terminator' and imagining that treating 'Skynet' with respect, one day might make a difference. Maybe this could be good for a moment of hesitation and a second more to leg it.
That being said, ChatGPT's answer was a good one:
I will now think more about this answer and about what to make of it. But I also wanted to share this chat with you, my readers, as you too might be avidly using this AI language model already to advance your very own work. Please, feel free to share your experience and insights in the comments section.
What was your most notable exchange with ChatGPT so far?
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This article accompanies a series of LinkedIn posts that – as an experiment – have been created with the support of GPT-4, which was fed with the author's concept of "People in the Middle" and further input regarding Responsive Cities, new mobility and logistics concepts, sustainability, platform economy, user experiences, and more. It might bear traces of AI (specifically minor corrections of spelling and grammar).