Why Should I Care about AI?

Back in the very early 2000's something called the "dotcom bubble" happened.

The "new" internet showed a tremendous amount of promise and anyone who could put a website together to sell something did so. Investors threw money everywhere and many of these dotcom startups went public.

Unfortunately, most of them also had crappy business plans, crappy products and never made any money. So predictably, they went bust when they burned through all the venture capital.

But the internet and the potential it held remained.

And few of us can even begin to imagine a world without the internet - both front and back sides of it.

An AI Bubble on the Horizon?

To be clear, my thoughts here is based on an assessment of the commentary from people a lot closer to the action than I am.

But they share some very interesting insights and, based on this, I'll venture a guess based on this information:

• The technology at the heart of all of this is not new. AI in the broader sense of the word has been in development since the late 1960's and there is no indication that people are stepping away from it,
• The underlying technology - the hardware - that makes this possible has undergone tremendous growth in the last couple of years. That - as well as the energy needed to power it - are key enablers that make the existing capability possible and if you follow what NVIDIA is doing it seems they are only now gaining momentum on this,
• Some of the biggest players in the market - Microsoft, Google, NVIDIA - are heavily invested in growing this technology. Specifically the foundations that make the output you and I see with Generative AI models possible.

Now, sure - there are many opportunists out there trying to float clever ideas on top of this very complicated technology stack. Some of them will bring something valuable, others will be a footnote in AI history.

But indications are at the moment that this technology will continue to develop and continue to become more impressive.

And as a consequence, it will continue to have an impact on our lives...

You Should Care

Now, as any experienced operations professional will tell you, there is a big difference between having a capability, and successfully deploying said capability in a manner that is operationally and financially sensible and sustainable.

It will be a while still before we have AI colleagues or have AI managers (interesting thought, right?).

The immediate threat to many of us is not direct integration, but rather the person or company who understands how to use the available capability to significantly enhance their own capabilities.

Very much like 2 amateur chess players made a mockery of respected grandmaster back in 2005 by successfully combining what the technology did best with what the human did best, you will struggle to remain competitive - or valuable - if you do not understand this new technology and learn how to use it well.

I invite you to spend 8 minutes and watch this recent YouTube video I posted going into this in more detail:

I invite your comments on this very topical matter.

A Rich Perspective

This week I had the opportunity to read the book "Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins" by Garry Kasparov, one of the most successful chess masters of our time.

Chess has been quite prominent in AI development since the mid 1980's and Kasparov's matches against IBM's Deep Blue is the stuff of legend.

You don't need to be a Chess player or even be interested in chess to appreciate this book. But it is written from the perspective of a User, someone who interacted with AI technology much like you and I do now with Generative AI models and who was not part of the development process.

And from this angle, his view as it developed over a span of 40 years is quite extraordinary, specifically in relation to how AI and humans can form a very effective, symbiotic relationship if approached correctly.

I can highly recommend picking up a copy. And if you are a chess aficionado, then his re-telling of the 2 matches against Deep Blue is really quite a fascinating read.

Have a great week

Johan