Most days digital engineers and architects feel like cloud-centric wrench turners. Thought leaders have talked about new ways to solve common problems. The world is changing as unsolvable problems are being addressed by AI. I do not want to harp on using AI to solve age-old mathematic problems. Or that Telsa is using computer vision to automate driving. All these are noble goals, but they are on the margins – net new impacts to enterprise and business. Fun and lovable, AI has been seen as a cheat code for engineering. The perfect shortcut. But now things are different. Now generative AI is showing us that it can disrupt business services.
Technology services like ChatGPT are different sorts of AI. First, it is contextual. You can treat it like a human and tell it things to remember, then ask it to do something. It’s historic; in that, it has decades of content to leverage so it can answer your request. Lastly, it’s in real-time. You can interact as if it’s a person. You do not HAVE to understand how to interface with it. You can create 10-page white papers explaining your rationale on how you solve business problems. I know this because I use it that way.
The disruptive quality of the technology is fascinating. “Binary” level content creators as far apart as technology coders and legal copyrights — will all need to learn a new way how to do their jobs. Technology can rarely change the level of effort at two orders of magnitude – but here we are. Another area I am seeing disruption is with artists. Great experiences are created via iteration – explore, editorialize, repeat. Generative AI offers a method to go on any flight of fantasy, generate an outcome, and see the results in minutes. Tons of other industries will be disrupted. Compared to the ATM banking machine, this should be a bigger and more widespread impact.
Many challenges lie ahead. The technology is already being politicized and taken out of context. The ethical use of generative AI would require it to be used in a sidecar fashion first. The answers you get from your queries sound confident, but the accuracy does not align with that confidence. My top recommendation is to always remember the value you get out of the technology. This is what matters – what force multiple are you looking at? If you cannot save 50x time from a radical change, keep looking for value.
That all being said. OpenAI got my $20/month. This technology helps me efficiently convey my value. As a businessman thought leader, technologist, and executive it increases my value. I hope to get my money’s worth. Leave a comment or reach out to me on my Twitter DMs, I would love to hear about your generative AI journeys.