I see fear-mongering about AI all over the place.
People worried about their jobs and their place in the world because of AI’s ability to automate. To be fair, some of this is warranted, i.e., AI automation will replace people in some roles. Including in my orbit directly. But let’s give it some context.
First, automating people out of jobs has been going on for 100’s of years through the introduction of machines into the workforce. Machines don’t get tired, have the strength of thousands of people, and can do the same thing repetitively with great precision. Nothing about the current wave of automation fear is novel or scarier than when machines joined the workforce.
Second, as with the introduction of machines, certain activities and jobs are more exposed than others. The current fear-inducing AI, ChatGPT, and its competitors are a type of AI called “large language models.”
“An LLM is akin to a vast library staffed by an incredibly fast and knowledgeable librarian. Just as this librarian can sift through thousands of books to provide information, summarize stories, or answer questions based on the content of those books, an LLM scans its extensive database of text from the internet to generate responses, make predictions, and understand context in a way that mimics human conversation and writing.”
The previous paragraph shows you what an LLM can do. ChatGPT wrote it. I asked it: “Describe what an LLM is in a couple sentences with an analogy.”
So, an LLM is good at certain types of writing. An LLM is also good at a few other things, such as generating images (and soon video) and writing code.
So where does that leave you and me, and will AI automation put us out of a job?
As someone who works in both software development and automation (both squarely in the sights of AI), I have a unique perspective. I see three broad levels of automation:
- Personal automation
- Organizational augmentation
- Autonomous automation
Over the next several days we’ll take a look at these, what they mean, and how AI fits into each.
