What Do You Want to Do More or Less of?

That’s really the crux of the matter with Artificial Intelligence (AI), isn’t it. How will AI actually be useful to each of us?

We’re urged to “Just play!” “Get comfortable with it so maybe you have a job in the future.” (whaaaaaat?!)

​Benefits to Enterprise or Corporate Businesses
These are seemingly fairly obvious. Changes are already happening. Rather than a Human First approach – what could we do with all of the existing human staff if each were equipped with this amazing tool to unlock discovery – we’re instead faced with AI First mentality – how can we reduce staff and replace with AI capability to achieve status quo (but with greater profit margin) and maybe see improvements beyond what humans could do.

The entire AI discussion really needs flipped. My thanks to Robert Rose of This Old Marketing podcast for initiating the thought in episode 484. Robert suggested rather than AI cutting jobs, why don’t we keep jobs and instead expand reach, productivity, and creativity of the existing work force.

Absolutely brilliant. 

AI Forward vs AI First
Words matter.

A number of corporations have recently posted news they’re “AI First.” A review of this Forbes article shares “AI First” places AI at the core of their corporate strategy. Companies such as Amazon, Duolingo, and Shopify recently said the quiet part out loud, initially with quite a bit of backlash, but more large corporations with the same message is dulling the response.

Compare that with “AI Forward” as suggested by Paul Roetzer of Marketing AI Institute. AI Forward is more focused on ways to help humans maximize their use of AI as a partner.

There are no delusions. Even with AI Forward, jobs will be impacted as less humans will seemingly be needed. But AI Forward aims to maximize the human factor and benefit rather than simply replace humans for the sake of saving money or higher profits.

But What DO We Want AI to Do?
AI is lovely when it conveniently works in the background to make our lives easier – restaurant or purchase suggestions based on our history, smoother phone use with connected applications, advances in science and research.

But what do we want to do with all of this supposedly new-found free time thanks to the wonders of all that AI will do for us?

• Take over the “boring” or routine parts of our jobs. That may work for some but not all employees. Some jobs are rather bespoke – highly individualized – and not much “routine” about them. Some folks (raising hand) also like our jobs!
• Give us time to pursue endeavors we wouldn’t otherwise have time for. Swell idea, but many endeavors rely on a paycheck or funds to happen. True, not all. We can all share free to low cost activity lists. But realistically and seriously – it takes money to make this world go ’round which comes in the form of paychecks. If we’re not earning paychecks or far less, then what?

What Do You Want to Do MORE of Thanks to AI?

• Be more creative at work. Let us keep our jobs, have AI do some functions, and let us focus on the purely human, integrated, creative tasks.
• Expand our creativity and thoughts. I welcome AI as an occasional thought partner – a better-than-search-engine entity – to bounce ideas off of to help me think outside of my box.
• Analysis and summary. Thank you, AI, for integrating and compiling pages of information to then summarize for me – yes, please! And in multiple formats? (“podcast” option in NotebookLM) Cool!

What Do You Want to do LESS of Thanks to AI?

• Dry, repetitive, boring tasks. Ok, ok! If you have these in your job, delegating these tasks to someone (or something) else would be useful.
• Ask others for assistance in complex projects. I’m a big figure-it-out’er. Independent gal. It is pretty nifty to be able to do bigger, deeper “searches” (“old” days of Google/basic search engines) with a “thought partner” from the comfort of home at any time of day. Caveat: Be sure you have resources and people to vet the assistance provided.
• Run and review complex data or mounds of text for information. Thank you, AI, for your distilling and summary features! AI does help save hours in some processes.

AI is Here – Now What?
None of us necessarily asked for it or had any concept to consider AI in our lives, but here we are. We’re going to need to figure out how to make the best of it while hopefully limiting the worst of it. (cue old B-rated sci-fi movies with AI taking over the world and unstoppable!)

It does behoove us to stay on top of advances. Play with models and features regularly. Use it where useful in your life and business without letting AI do everything for you. If you’re not actively involved in the task you assign to AI or your intern (whoever you delegate to), you will not be able to cogently speak on the topic. It’s Learning 101.

But be aware. Be selective. Be Human.

How are you using AI in your business? Love to hear your thoughts – Let’s Chat by email or connect on LinkedIn!