You’ve heard of The Great Depression, The Great Resignation, and maybe (hopefully!) The Great Simplification, but have you heard of The Great Distraction?
Ah, I suppose most people just call it A.I.
I am increasingly concerned about this.
Of COURSE we can’t ignore this technology. It has all the makings of a significant evolution in the way we work.
But it is NOT a revolution.**
At least not yet.
A.I. is disruptive and disturbing, powerful and mysterious, can truly feel magical, and I really do get the attraction — I’ve been a tech early adopter my whole life. I quite happily give OpenAI money every month for the Plus version of ChatGPT. I even recently named my GPT: Vox McPromptbeard, if you’re curious. (Yarrrrrr…! 🏴☠️)
But still, I am concerned about the way I see organizational leaders approaching A.I.
The great danger is one of great distraction. The hype around A.I. is so pervasive, so real, that leaders are losing their minds about it. I know that’s a colloquial phrase, but I don’t mean it in a “they’re going crazy” kind of way; I mean leaders are not using their minds in the way they should.
To be clear, the goal is NOT to stop utilizing A.I. — I definitely won’t be slowing down; Vox McPromptbeard has already become an indispensable digital swashbuckling assistant! ☠️
The goal is to learn where to put A.I. in the order of things.
When understood more properly, A.I. in its current stage is a lot like the cute little droids from Star Wars; not the C3PO type, the little tiny ones (see image above). These little droids can do what they were designed to do — polish your spaceship or bring you a screwdriver or whatever — but that’s about it. Outside of those tasks, they’re a little bumbling and often frustrating. They make dumb mistakes and do a lot of slightly dumb things.
Does that mean they’re not useful? No, of course not — they’re hugely useful!
Does it mean they’re not “smart?” No, they’re quite smart — it takes quite a lot of digital intelligence to do what they do.
Does it mean they’re not cute? No, they’re freaking adorable!
But do they know what needs to be done?
No, they don’t!
We have to give them DIRECTION.
They may be smart, but they are NOT wise in knowing what to do with their smarts.
A.I. is currently a lot like this, and this helps us know what our role is becoming.
As A.I. infiltrates all parts of our work — and make no mistake, it will — our task is to go “higher.”
Zoom out.
Get wiser.
Become more discerning.
Get more strategic.
Don’t let yourself get distracted by what other organizations are doing; benchmarking is useless when change is happening this quickly. Don’t get preoccupied by the insane number of A.I. tools springing up every day; eventually, things will shake out and settle down. Don’t get pulled into the weeds; do enough self-care to keep your head up and your spirit grounded.
The goal should be to run experiments and set up environments where people in your organization are required to try new things with A.I. — and, if you want that to work at all, you’ll first have to make sure your values and culture actually support tons of tiny failures. Then, you’ll need to learn to double down on the tests that work and don’t get too attached to the ones that don’t.
Keep moving, keep iterating, keep going.
Your job is direction, guidance, wisdom.
These are things we humans are really good at — when we’re not distracted.
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P.S. I had a friend ask me the other day if I use GPT to help write these weekly articles — I don’t; these articles are A.I.-free. For me, this is my commitment and practice to keep my thinking and writing skills sharp, and the second benefit is it also creates fresh content to “feed” Vox so it can learn my voice better and better. Maybe I’ll change my mind down the road, but for now this feels good for me. You obviously get to decide how to use A.I. in a way that best serves you… and well, ain’t that just the whole point of today’s article…!? Be intentional, thoughtful, and wise, my friends!
**As I often talk about, “revolution” means a “complete turn around.” Right now, A.I. seems like it will dramatically evolve the way we work and live, but it doesn’t seem clear that it will actually revolutionize anything. In certain ways, I hope it does… time will tell.