Brace yourself.
The age of AI is coming. And if you’re not preparing yourself for it, it might not turn out that well for you. Nobody knows what’s coming, but most agree a change is coming.
And the best defence is always taking action.
Earlier this week as I was doing my daily review (in https://readwise.io/), the pic below caught my eye:
Written long ago (heh, 2016, not so long but these days years seem to just fly by), these words have an interesting meaning right now.
Generative AI is changing it all for us. And it’s doing it right under our noses. But before diving into creativity, tech and social structure, let’s talk about the now.
Going too Far Already?
I am noticing increasingly a lot of people – even people I think are smart – outsourcing all of their thinking processes into artificial intelligence.
And I’m not going to lie, not only does this worry me but it also makes me a bit sad. On one level, I think people are doing this because they lack confidence in their own ideas. And on the other level, maybe they are just lazy and think that AI will be able to do everything for them anyway. I mean, might as well just start already then?
We are still in the early days of this new reality though. And it will remain to be seen what is the real impact, long term, in our professional work.
But if you outsource your creativity, your idea-generation machinery, to AI, you’re just doing it wrong, plain and simple.
Creativity, Tech and Social Structures
The people who retain their confidence, dignity and genuine creativity will surface on top of this storm.
This is the only way to remain you. Everything else can be amplified, augmented, enhanced — but if you switch off your brains and become something like the citizens in Pixar’s WALL-E, you’ve lost the game.
Sure, there will be people happy to accept your money as a consumer at that point, but is there really a point to live in a world where you just consume things created by others and do everyone else’s bidding?
Now more than ever it’s important to stay creative. Just for your own sake.
And then there is the question of the social structures. In the age of social media, this roughly speaking translates to your friends, connections and audience. And obviously, the people who already have an audience are now at an advantage. So it is a bit ironic that even I in the past have been making fun of let’s say tick tock celebrities, but now it is those people who are wielding all the influence in many ways.
The traditional structures are being shaken to their very core right now. From our perspective, we see the individuals with big audiences. But the ones who govern the algorithms are the ones with real power.
A New Workout Programme
What if you started intentionally cultivating all three:
- Your creativity
- New technological tools
- Your social structures
I know I know, you’re probably doing all that, on at least some level.
But we can all do better by being a bit more alert about what’s going on in the world right now and how our jobs are on the line in the future.
Do you want to be a cog in the machine until that cog is no longer needed (and that’s happening fast with AI).
Or do you want to make sure you get to enjoy staying on board?
So, make it a habit to create something new every week.
Do not just take tasks from other people and use AI to complete them fast. That way you become a robot, soon to be replaced by AI anyway. And that just might happen way faster than you think.
Then the other thing is the social structures. Or, we can just be a bit more human here and talk about your friends, peers, colleagues and other connections. These are your social fabric.
Now is the time to start building your audience, making new friends, or calling your old friends. Make sure you have connections to navigate in this new world. And it’s not just the connections that matter. An audience can be extremely helpful in distributing the things you create with your own genuine human creativity.
And of course it doesn’t have to be even your audience, as long as you have access to it. This access can be through your job, friends, doing something so worthy that others write about it. But, access to people is now more important than ever.
And finally, lean forward and embrace the new tech.
So many AI tools are now popping up. Don’t try to use all of them. But master at the very minimum the basics of prompt engineering and a few tools that support the exact line of job you’re doing at the moment.
Now is not the time for being stubborn.
Now is the time to adapt.
See you next week!