Putting the 'i' into Innovation (5 Ways to get in the Mood)
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Putting the 'i' into Innovation (5 Ways to get in the Mood)
AI and Web3 are kicking off a new wave of innovation - fasten your seatbelt!
The letter ‘i’ seems to be at the heart of each post modern wave of innovation. From the Internet in the 1990’s to the iPhone in the noughties-but-nice and today it looks like the ‘i’ is squared thanks to the two timing effect of Internet3 (generally known as Web3) and AI (generally known as pull out the p45).
Venture capitalists have started throwing money at AI start-ups like Mama’s pasta against the wall, investing over $11 billion in May alone, according to PitchBook who are thinking of repositioning themselves as an AI data outfit. Companies from Moderna to Heinz have mentioned AI initiatives on recent earnings calls, sounding like a hill full of beans.
About $12.5 billion in investments have gone into generative AI start-ups this year so far, compared with only $4.5 billion invested in the field in all of 2022. It seems as though generative AI is the tip of the spear right now. A spear that could stab anyone.
Silicon Valley has got itself all hot and bothered hunting down the next acronym to getting rich and famous while the rest of us are left chasing after it like a bunch of pie eyed teenagers trying to catch a glimpse of Beyonce’s vehicle cortege (Escalade parade) as it leaves us behind in its distant wake.
As a result, innovation is the new cool all over again. Covid, frenetically increasing heating bills and price gouging petrol stations need to move on. Climate anxiety might have to step aside or get ditched. It’s time we pulled ourselves together and got some of 2023’s ‘i’nnovation. Here’s a cheat sheet to get us in the mood:
Re-write your startup business plan and change every mention of the word ‘tech’ with AI. Don’t worry if you wouldn’t know a robot from a rhino, investors are suckers for it right now.
Redo your linkedin profile and make sure that every fifth word is Web3 pundit or AI human-but-really-a-high-powered-machine or just Vision Pro engineer.
Buy shares in Nvidia because the punters seem to think they’ll become the first gazillion dollar company and its way easier getting rich off other people’s clever ideas.
Start a new company that combines Web3 with climate and makes clouds that spit out crypto coins like rain - just not the Binance way because apparently that might be a bit dodgy.
Stop subscription hopping to get your news. Spend the time and energy on your next idea instead. That’s an ever more sensible path as the machines make news redundant (they love alternative facts). Succession has ended - Logan Roy died, Royco is sold and our Live Action Roy er Murdoch is in his 90’s. So unless they make an AI Murdoch the future is LettsNews, where we can all gather news and their wider tent AI will replace the news agency. Sorry Reuters.
On a more serious note, God forbid (sorry evangelical subscribers), we will all have to mug up on our innovation skills. You see, at a minimum AI, as it becomes increasingly pervasive, will force all of us to get good at ideation because the execution and management of everything will be done by robots. Meaning our ability to turn ideas into new products, processes and ventures could be accelerated and made simpler by the rapid advances in machine automation or we’ll get swallowed by it.
And with this lies the key to mastering the next wave of innovation - making sure we put ourselves in a position where we are controlling the machines and not the other way around. To do this we will have to master the new technologies to deliver enhanced products and services. You know, the Apple way so-long-as-you-are-in-their-universe method. But perhaps tomorrow, we can find a new way. One that reverses the monopolistic enshittification of everything. One that actually empowers the individual without ending up taking them to the cleaners like the last wave of corporatisation.
New innovators will have to move fast to make sure that the large conglomerates don’t control all the machines - have you seen the price of Nvidia’s tech lately? Indeed, it could be that a new idea of conglomerate emerges - one that is better and faster at turning its ideas into new products and ventures than anyone else. One that scales rapidly through automation and advances in machine-driven customer service and marketing to put the customer on a pedestal again. Business 101 with a little AI on the side.
A branded, fully automated venture group for the AI world. A place for your post WALL-E cv. A place we think of as home. A place that combines new ideas with technology, automation and sustainability not for the sake of SEO-fuelling buzzwords but because in the post modern, post robot world humans matter.
Maybe that’s really where we’re heading. Let’s hope.
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