By Tom Hickey, CEO Northampton Consulting
Over the past week or so, there has been a groundswell of interest in ChatGPT. If you’re not familiar with ChatGPT, there’s plenty of great info out there on the information superhighway. I’m definitely not an expert on ChatGPT or AI in general so it would be a fools errand for me to try and replicate what a lot of very smart folks are already doing. So I won’t.
What has been fascinating to watch over the weekend is how those refinements have led to an explosion of interest in OpenAI’s capabilities and a burgeoning awareness of AI’s impending impact on society, despite the fact that the underlying model is the two-year old GPT-3.
AI Homework, Ben Thompson
That said, I came across a piece by Ben Thompson entitled AI Homework that I would encourage everyone to read. It’s really good.
But it wasn’t the content specific to AI/ChatGPT that I found incredibly illuminating. It was the inherent need of humans to act as their own gatekeeper of truth if AI is going to become a useful tool. This is something that I have always believed. Unfortunately, the current conversation focuses almost exclusively on 3rd-party regulators of truth (the social platforms themselves, the federal government, the truth fairy, etc.)
Ben (yep, we’re now on a first name basis) concisely lays out the plan for AI and internet content overall: “…instead of insisting on top-down control of information, embrace abundance, and entrust individuals to figure it out. In the case of AI, don’t ban it for students — or anyone else for that matter; leverage it to create an educational model that starts with the assumption that content is free and the real skill is editing it into something true or beautiful; only then will it be valuable and reliable.” You’ll need to read the piece for more context but he’s absolutely right. Personal responsibility. What a concept!
Are you following AI closely? Do you think it qualifies as a disruptive technology? Let is know your thoughts, we’d love to hear them.
p.s. There are obvious exceptions to the idea that personal responsibility can and should be leading the truth brigade. The most obvious is younger folks with younger frontal lobes who don’t have the ability to discern between fact and fiction as well as older adults. In that case, the solution is even simpler: regulate social platform/news access based on age – and set it up so it works.
p.p.s. Follow “Stratechery” by Ben Thompson, you will not be disappointed. You can also check out our The Newsroom for updates from Stratechery.
Northampton Consulting 