Jul 30, 2024 | AI, Leadership
Increasingly, we must distinguish between ‘content’ created by some AI tool, masquerading as thought leadership and advice, and the genuine output of experts seeking to inform, encourage debate and deepen the pool of knowledge.
I’m constantly reminded as I read and hear the superficial nonsense spread around as serious advice, of the story Charlie Munger often told of Max Planck and his chauffeur.
Doctor Planck had been touring Europe giving the same lecture on quantum mechanics to scientific audiences. His constant chauffeur had heard the presentation many times, and had learnt it by heart. One night in Munich, he suggested that he give the lecture while Doctor Planck acting as the chauffeur sat in the audience, resting.
After a well received presentation a question from a professor was asked to which the chauffeur responded, ‘I am surprised that in an advanced city like Munich, I get such an elementary question. I am going to ask my chauffeur to respond’.
It is hard at a superficial level to tell the difference between a genuine expert, and someone who has just learned the lines.
To tell the difference between those two you must
- Dig deeper to determine the depth of knowledge, where it came from. Personal stories and anecdotes are always a good market of originality.
- Understand how the information adjusts to different circumstances, and contexts. An inability to articulate the ‘edge’ situations offers insight to the depth of thinking that has occurred.
- Look for the sources of the information being delivered. Peer reviewed papers and research is always better than some random Youtube channel curated for numbers to generate ad revenue.
- Consider the ‘tone of voice’ in which the commentary is delivered. AI generated material will be generic, bland, average. By contrast, genuine originality will always display the verbal, written and presentation characteristics of the originator.
- Challenge the ‘expert’ to break down the complexity of the idea into simple terms that a 10 year old would understand.
These will indicate to you the degree of understanding from first principles, the building blocks of knowledge, that the ‘Guru’ has.
The header is a photo of Max Planck in his study, without his chauffeur.
Jul 22, 2024 | AI, Strategy
Our brains work on 3 levels.
At the most basic is the ‘reptilian brain.’ This is the ancient wiring that is common with every other animal. It monitors and manages the automatic things that must happen for life. Our instincts, temperature control, heart rate, respiration reproductive drives, everything necessary for the survival of the animal.
The limbic system. This manages our emotional lives, fear, arousal, memories, it is where we store our beliefs. It in effect provides the framework through which we look to make sense of the world.
The Neo cortex, the newest part of our brain that differentiates us from other animals. It is where we make choices, it controls our language, imagination, and self-awareness.
This three-part picture is a metaphor. The parts of the brain do not act independently, but in an entirely integrated manner, each having an impact on the others, and receiving input from the others.
Consider the parts of this complex interconnected and interdependent neuro system that is replaceable by AI. There is not all that many of them, beyond the extrapolation of language and imagery from what is in the past.
Despite the hype, we have a long way to go before artificial sentience will be achieved, if it is possible. (Expert opinion varies from ‘Within the decade’ to ‘Never’).
However, who cares?
The productivity gains from AI are present in some form in every current job, and the numbers of new jobs that will emerge are huge. Nobody had conceived of the job of ‘prompt engineer’ 3 years ago!
These new jobs in combination with the renewal of those currently available, will deliver satisfaction, and a standard of living out kids will thank us for.
Sadly, there is always a flip side. In this case it is the dark downsides we all see emerging from social media, which will also be on steroids, and the social dislocation that will occur to those on the sharp end of the changes in jobs.
How we manage that balance will be the challenge of the 2030’s.
Image by Canva.com
Jul 2, 2024 | AI, Change, Strategy
AI is the latest new shiny thing in everybody’s sightline.
It seems to me that AI has two faces, a bit like the Roman God Janus.
On one hand we have the large language models or Generatively Pre-trained Transformers, and on the other we have the tools that can be built by just about anyone to do a specific task, or range of tasks, using the GPT’s.
The former requires huge ongoing capital investments in the technology, and infrastructure necessary for operations. There are only a few companies in the position to make those investments: Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Apple, and perhaps a few others should they choose to do so. (in former days, Governments might consider investing in such fundamental infrastructure, as they did in roads, power generation, water infrastructure)
At the other end of the scale are the tools which anybody could build using the technology provided by the owners of the core technology and infrastructure.
These are entirely different.
Imagine if Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla between them had managed to be the only ones in a position to generate electricity. They sold that energy to anybody who had a use for it from powering factories, to powering the Internet, to home appliances.
That is the situation we now have with those few who own access to the technology and anybody else who chooses to build on top of it.
The business models that enabled both to grow and prosper are as yet unclear, but becoming clearer every day.
For example, Apple has spent billions developing the technology behind Siri and Vision Pro, neither of which has evolved into a winning position. In early June (2024) Apple and OpenAI did a deal to incorporate ChatGPT into the Apple operating system.
It is a strategic master stroke.
Apple will build a giant toll booth into the hyper-loyal and generally cashed up user base of Apple. Going one step further, they have branded it ‘Apple Intelligence’. In effect, they have created an ‘AI house-brand.’ Others commit to the investment, and Apple charges for access to their user base, with almost no marginal cost.
Down the track, Apple will conduct an auction amongst the few suppliers of AI technology and infrastructure for that access to their user base. To wrangle an old metaphor, they stopped digging for gold, and started selling shovels.
Masterstroke.
It means they can move their focus from the core GPT technology, to providing elegant tools to users of the Apple ecosystem, and charge for the access.
What will be important in the future is not just the foundation technology, which will be in a few hands, but the task specific tools that are built on top of the technology, leveraging its power.
Jun 28, 2024 | Leadership
Performance is always enhanced when there is skin in the game.
I only work with SME’s, for the very simple reason that those in charge have skin in the game. The process of creating the environment where significant improvement to financial operational and strategic performance can be achieved requires change, and change is hard. When you own the business, and you decide that change is necessary to achieve the goals, you can drive those changes, and most people will follow. In a large business, most of the senior management still get paid, even when the train goes off the rails. They may lose a bonus here and there, but usually not, as they set the rules themselves.
It is a situation I dislike.
In the case of marketing, the lack of accountability for outcomes is more pronounced than in other functions. There is a mystique, a black box, and marketers have convinced themselves, and others that success is about long-term brand building, therefore they cannot be held accountable for results today.
Nonsense.
Marketing should be accountable for margins, absolute and percentages, today and tomorrow. Then they have some skin in the game and will act accordingly.
The upside of the greater accountability is that those in the corner office will take them more seriously than they have in the past.
The turnover of senior marketing personnel is faster than any other function. CEO’s are usually accountants, lawyers or engineers, and they quickly get sick of marketers talking in cliches, making vague promises, then delivering creative excuses when the outcomes fail to materialise.
Accept accountably for revenue and margins, and that uncertainty goes away.
As Steve Jobs put it, you need to ‘own the results‘.
Header credit: NZ Herald State of origin 2,.2024
Jun 17, 2024 | Change, Strategy
80% of Googles revenue comes from advertising. The obvious question is how the explosion of AI after the release of ChatGPT will impact on that revenue, and virtual monopoly of search that delivers it.
Rather than typing in a query and getting pages and pages of options for an answer, headed by 5 or six links that have paid to be at the top of the first page, AI will give you an ‘exact’ single answer.
At least you hope it will be the right answer.
If it is a simple black and white question, like what is the capital of Australia, you can be pretty sure it will be right, but if you want a detailed explanation of the science of climate change, it will be insufficient, and potentially misleading.
However, in a world of instant gratification, the first answer that appears right will be accepted, and as the late Daniel Kahneman demonstrated, we like the quick, ‘fast’ response in favour of the considered ‘slow’ answer.
Google has responded to this existential threat to its profitability with a tool called ‘AI Overviews’, currently in beta. It summarises search results and presents them as a single answer to the query.
‘Overviews’ It operates on the principle of “satisficing,” or providing quick, decent answers rather than a range of options.
Presumably, the ‘toll-booth’ will still be at the point of click through, while advertisers will be given the option to be on the ‘satisficing’ menu, for a price. Not a lot of change from current, frankly.
However, the tectonic forces driving the adoption of Ai will have impacts across the face of business, government and our personal lives, few of which are easily forecastable.
Darwin’s dictum that it is not the biggest or fastest that survive, but the most adaptable to change will really be tested in the coming decade.
