Augmented & Automated Intelligence

abstract orange dots and lines and stuff on dove grey.

I put together a lightweight conference summary that I thought y’all might find useful.

I attended the Autonomous Innovation Summit this week and drank from a nerdy firehose. I took in many presentations that cited multiple sources, so I don’t have direct attributions, but I have Statistics, Takeaways, Guidelines, Provocations, and Observations to share.

Overall 

Digital Transformation was more than ground-to-cloud, and Autonomous Innovation is more than Chat GPT.

Calling Autonomous Innovation and Augmented Artificial Intelligence the next phase of Digital Transformation and/or Design Thinking guarantees its failure—no single framework or process can live up to those expectations. 

The future of AI is (not surprisingly) not monolithic in nature, consisting of multiple trained models (Agents) being used for specific purposes. 

LLMs drive unprecedented emotional connections to technology—far more than query or task-specific Alexa or Siri + no one misses the well-intended Clippy. 

Data Statements 

The growth curve of Chat GPT, achieving 100m users in three months, far outpaces FB’s previous record of 4.5 years. 

Approximately 40% of the code submitted to GitHub today was AI-generated. 

Parasocial relationships result from high frequency use of Generative AI, as LLMs are engineered to drive trust and mimic human communication.

Pragmatic Takeaways

AI isn’t going to take your job, but the person who takes your job will know how to use it. 

The current state of AI is the worst we will ever see, as it will only get better the more we interact with it. 

AI, including but not limited to Chat GPT, is currently best at overcoming blank page syndrome when applied to the creative process. 

Just because GPT can do something doesn’t mean it can do it better than a human, but it will likely get it done faster. 

There is a bias towards trusting the outcomes of using LLMs, which makes hallucinations more problematic. 

Usage Guidelines

LLMs are modeled after how humans operate, so treating it as a human will drive an optimal outcome. 

Complimenting and thanking GPT results in it providing more meaningful outcomes.  

Ask GPT questions vs. giving it orders for a better response. 

Effective prompts involve a) Persona, b) Objective, c) Audience, d) Scope, and e) Context. 

Interesting Provocations

Monoculture, or a low diversity of ideas, is a significant challenge, as AI-consuming AI-generated content has finite potential. 

Collective intelligence was a common topic; a Supermind was proposed as an organizational model to drive Augmented Collective Intelligence. 

Modern AI disrupts innovation, resulting in the traditional Innovation Double Diamond either evolving or dying. 

One ideal future state is having humans curate and edit outcomes from models that bring us unprompted findings to serve our needs.  

LLMs are built to be human role-playing machines. 

LLMs work best ingesting data in motion, and change is life. 

How do we embrace this technology without losing our humanity? 

Operational Observations 

Unintended smashcut transitions from speaker to speaker at remote conferences are jarring. 

Unstructured networking results in many LinkedIn links and hopeful introductions in the conference chat. 

Without structured networking, the conference chat is a junk drawer of high-fives for speakers, questions, snark, comments, and…..’I’m looking for work' CTAs. 

Net Net 

In-person conferences are ideal, and remote conferences are a bit of a dice-roll but are better than hybrid conferences.  

I definitely recommend attending the Autonomous Innovation Summit and found most speakers compelling. 

Since there is no singular playbook for harnessing AI there are multiple frameworks and lenses to apply to how it can drive business value. 

The only ‘wrong way’ to leverage Generative AI is to use it as a 1:1 substitute for human capital. 

The human in the loop is more important than ever—curation and guidance are key to achieving actionable outcomes using Generative AI.

Automation and Augmented Artificial Intelligence will continue to drive business value and become more mainstream.