Generating the Future
From alarmist media headlines to prompt engineering trends, it’s all too easy to get carried away with the noise
You are brilliant.
No one else understands the world like you do.
Nothing else knows what you know.
From your life lived to your emotions felt, you approach challenges and opportunities in a way that only you are capable of.
Machines are smart.
Artificially so.
Generative intelligence is not the same as general intelligence.
Generative AI enables technology to create, based on a combination of complex patterns infused with randomness. This does not mean that it has the same general ability to think humanistically like you can.
Or to feel. Or to care. Deeply.
Just as the evolution of pencils and search engines enabled us to think and create in new ways, so does the next evolution of technology. Moving us forward. As long as we take time to explore and consider the possibilities as the world evolves around us. Zooming out to see the big picture instead of getting lost in the detail.
From alarmist media headlines to prompt engineering trends, it’s all too easy to get carried away with the noise, while failing to strategically notice the quiet shifts.
Let me give you an example with two simple questions. Pause for a moment – taking time to breathe, reflect and answer thoughtfully and honestly…
1) Have you heard of ChatGPT?
2) Do you know what GPT stands for?
If you’re like most people, I imagine your answers might have been yes of course… and no.
Even though everything you need to think of the second question, is contained in the first.
Using your human curiosity to spot significant future signals that help you lead change from a strategic perspective. Realising the idea of generative pre-trained transformers – or GPT for short – represents a fundamental evolution in the way we create and manage data. Pre-training to generate what can at first seem like magical results.
Digging deeper to discover that the transformational power of GPT relies on LLM. Large language models. Realising that just as numerically driven automation has been transformational in the way our organisations work, the increasing automation of words is beginning another fundamental shift.
Artificial words can mislead and distract.
They can also valuably and helpfully guide and instruct.
Making some tasks more efficient. While the creative nature of humanity then invents new things that only we can do.
This has always been the nature of progress.
Creating the wheel gave us time in our days to invent the cart. Creating the cart gave us the energy to invent the automobile. The automobile led us to work on self-driving vehicles.
So when you travel to work in your self-driving vehicle reading your self-writing updates, fear not.
There will always be important work to be done.
That only you and your unique brilliance will be capable of.
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