Surviving AI: A Guide to Keeping the Machines Onside!
AI is the next big technology revolution. It will upend the future of work (again) but it might just reward the brave.
If I have to suffer another article, share, tweet (maybe not much longer), video or pundit’s Linkedin recommendation about AI, I think I’m going to take my proverbial Siri/ChatGPT/robot-help-desk-assistant-for-HSBC and strap them to Elon Musk’s next rocket to wherever. And yet I have this lurking suspicion that (unlike hula hoops) AI is here to stay - like, say, the iPhone. Today some of us think back to the heady day we queued for the first mini-me-Steve-Jobs-in-a-pocket because of a similar lurking suspicion that it would lead us to a whole new world of smart phones… well, mostly… Apple... and really apps.
To help you not become the post iPhone double time loser who also missed out on the AI craze we’ve come up with a summer survival guide to the machines. And by machines we don’t mean the cappuccino kind. We mean full on generative intelligence - WALL-E!
A guide to surviving AI:
Replace the ‘If’ poster above your bed with the image below. It’s your new North. Thanks Ruben, sorry Rudyard (Kipling).
Go get some AI generated images because you've probably broken all the free limits in Getty (are there any?) or Unsplash or so you can bust your creepy government-spying-gadget-called-HUAWEI smartphone, then just Google search WALL-E and you’ll get ads for DALL-E. (What’s with the upper case thing?)
If you’re a graduate I’d skip stability ai’s (all lower case??) intern programme because apparently their boss told Laura Kuensberg, who might or might not be an AI herself, on national TV that the best way to understand where AI is today as a tool for the workplace is to compare it to hiring a bunch of graduates. Proving that they would do well not to leave HR policy to their machine quite yet and their boss could probably do with a bit more media training.
Alternatively you could hire a bunch of graduates to use AI to get all the menial tasks done by the little corporate WALL-E’s without any help from lawyers, bankers, consultants or any one else who wouldn’t know a customer in real life (IRL) if they were to hit them in the tin-face.
Get a robot to do your vacuuming and lawn mowing because apparently it actually works and you will have more time to mug up on AI and get a job/life - at work. Alternatively go green and let mushrooms grow in your carpet (yep, dump the Dyson because it’s pretty crap and they’re a bit passe still using uppercase ‘D’ in Dyson). Also, go ‘No Mow May’ every month. Apparently it does wonders for the wildlife which might be the only colleagues you can get when the robots make you redundant IRL.
Check the t&c’s on generative AI tools because most of them get to own all the IP even if you have it generate copy from your blog or images from your photos!! Proving machines can f**k you just as much as any corporation run by humans.
If you want to create the next hot generative AI startup do one that actually works or get AI to generate our old email addresses and passwords so we can get back into the gazillion apps Steve Jobs (RIP) sold us. Alternatively get a next generation WALL-E/DALL-E/I-DON’T-GIVE-A-STUFF-ABOUT-THE-NAME-COS-ITS-A-ROBOT-E phone meaning we won’t need apps or passwords or to ever have to get help from BT or EE or Vodafone or Santander or any other big corporate who’s products don’t work and have turned customer support into a ride down a circling drain that never ends...
Speaking of big corporations, you might want to skip working for them because AI will kill them. A bit like the ice and Sid the Sloth knocked off the dinosaurs. You see the real future of AI will be to replace the many levels of working execs under the corporate bosses with loads of WALL-E’s that IBM or McKinsey sells them. Suddenly all that’ll be left are the slightly incompetent bosses who are about as removed from the product and customer as Elon Musk is from reality. As a result a new set of entrepreneurs will emerge who have actually met their customers, won’t need people managers, and can train their WALL-E’s to make shit that works the first time. That, and know how to be nice to its users and can answer the phone… Like the way LettsNews will change the news industry. Oh wait…
If you think Generation Z are weird and wonderful with their heads permanently up their EA game or free music remixes on the Beats, just wait for generation Alpha. Yep, their WALL-E’s kids.
See AI as the massive opportunity that it is and embrace it fully... until you get laid off. Then go back to the wildlife warden thing.
On a more serious note, AI is the next big technology revolution. Period. It will upend the future of work (again) but it might just reward the brave - and create a whole load of stock market gains. Unless of course you’re an equity analyst in which case you may as well become an AI entrepreneur because the machines are after your job too! Sorry.
Keep up to date with The Letts Journal’s latest news stories and updates on twitter.