Contemplating Life’s Choices

Today we did a bunch of spring cleaning, yes I know it’s basically summer in some parts of the world but where I live it’s still spring weather. Anyway, while we were doing a ton of cleaning I was binge listening to the At Work with The Ready podcast.

I’ve enjoyed listening to Rodney and Sam for a while now and in the episodes I binged today one thing that stuck out was if giving out AI tools to everyone in an organization is worth it.

I work in tech and consult companies across the Global Fortune 500 and what I’m seeing is it may not the best idea to blanket give out AI tool access to everyone. A common issue I see is the CEO will grant everyone access to an AI tool along with a mandate to “be AI first” but then all the leaders below don’t have clarity on how to manage change, provide enablement, or even guidance on what to do with the tools other than “be more productive” or “increase efficiency”.

Another issue is that some organizations don’t have any sort of governance, risk, or security processes, recommendations, or guidance in place to ensure what people build isn’t going to leak a bunch of data or create an opening into the business that a hacker could take advantage of… Y’all if we can build faster so can the hackers…

The other thing that came up in listening to At Work with The Ready was if your mandate is just to use AI to be more productive or efficient are you considering if automating the current tasks people are doing is worth it. I have never seen an organization that was fully efficient and effective that was just waiting for AI to automate it all and make billions of dollars. A lot of what happens at work could be what someone interpreted as the most important thing to do but that’s slightly misaligned with the orgs goals, something someone started doing because a leader mentioned it once and no one ever stopped them from doing it again, or because organizations expect you to work 8 hours a day 5 days a week so some work has just expanded to fill the time.

Think about it. Is everything you do in your day-to-day returning value to the organization? Is everything you do something you’d keep doing if you didn’t need to fill 40 hours a week? If you could wave a magic wand and automate anything that is repetitive for your role would it be meaningful to do so?

If you’re giving me side eye right now thinking of course everything people do at work is meaningful and impactful… It could be worth your time to read Bullshit Jobs, Lab Rats, or The Good Enough Job.

I’ve found that just saying everyone should use AI doesn’t mean everyone will use it for anything meaningful or productive. If people are being measured on AI usage they may find ways to be compliant that may also be wasting resources. Making cat memes, AI videos, or using AI to email someone who is also using AI to email you back is probably not what any executive had in mind when mandating everyone get on the AI train.

The other consideration is if every single person in every single company around the world started using AI for a significant part of their work day what does that mean for the resources involved to do so? Does anyone think we can pull enough power and water from our environment to actually run that much AI use? And what about the people who find themselves displaced because now the agents can do the work that was actually meaningful to the business? And even if you’re someone who is great running AI tools, do you get paid more because you’re now producing the work of 3-4 people or do you get to work less and get paid the same because of your increased productivity?

I absolutely do not pretend to know everything about AI or to be some brilliant thought leader in this space. What I do know is I generally spend 5+ hours a week listening to people far smarter than me talk about AI from a business, tech, and human perspective and that’s what I use to inform how I think about AI.

My current vibe is that a lot of the questions around AI are answered by things that live in the gray area. Where there is no fully wrong or fully right answer but where the answers could be both/and. In our current culture, particularly in the US though I know it’s not just here, a lot of people aren’t tolerant of holding opposing ideas or sitting with complex issues that may bring both pros and cons. I think AI will require that of us.

If you’re looking for resources to learn more about AI these are some of them that I have been using:

• Shae O. Omonijo – AI, Humanities, and the Future of Work
• IBM Technology – easy to understand and short dives into the technical components of AI
• Nate B. Jones – AI news and updates that are easy to understand even if you are not in tech or in a technical role (Some of his stuff is geared towards folks in tech but he puts out a ton of content worth checking out.)
• Co-Intelligence or One Useful Thing – AI researcher out of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania

If you have any favorite resources you use to stay up to date on AI I’m always open to new podcasts or books to read.

For those on the fence, I do recommend getting to know what AI is all about and taking the time to cultivate your own opinions on AI. We all get to choose whether we participate in the AI hype or wallow in the existential AI dread. Some days we may sit with both. It’s ok to take the time to figure it out for yourself.