Thriving in the Exponential Age: How Generative AI will Disrupt Your Professions in the Digital Era
Explore the seismic impact of generative AI on white-collar industries, and discover how to adapt and thrive in this transformative era
The rise of generative AI, such as #ChatGPT, has ushered in a new era of unprecedented growth and innovation. I will try to unpack this tsunami impact of generative AI on mostly white-collar professions and explore opportunities in this very real revolution to adapt to stay relevant in the Exponential Age.
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The inspiration for this blog post is a result of my professional and personal interest in technology adoption, as well as macroeconomic trends as key business drivers, which exposed me to varied themed topics on global economic trends, secular growth, and demographic & technology disruption. My learning track record has had me experiment with Blockchain, machine learning, and AI to name… just a few.
This is all part of the GDP and long-term growth speculations, given the present global economic reality, as building and maintaining a future-looking personal pension (SIPP) hands-on is something of a past-time lately.
We’re witnessing the incredible impact of #OpenAi #ChatGPT on a global scale, — literally “For The First Time in Forever…. (100 years+)” a technology revolution that is and will be transforming the way we approach digital value creation, and amplifying human imagination like never before.
This largely-implied-to-be positive shift is poised to disrupt the world in ways we can only begin to imagine, as over a billion people gain access to such transformative technology (Thanks to Microsoft, Google, and Entrepreneurial startups all over).
it’s not a mere “Welcome to the Exponential Age” any longer.
Unpacking the Impact: The Big Picture
You are all living through this pivotal AI Moment, and in my opinion, — nothing will ever be quite the same.
So welcome to the #ExponentialAge enabled by #ai actual #knowledge acceleration. It’s no longer simple #information wiki dumps.
And if you thought “the AI adoption would probably take a decade, perhaps 5–7 years out…” when forecasting the future progress, based on your linear time extrapolation based on the last decade — is most likely to be wrong now, more than ever.
This is and will be an x10+ multiple redux, with a compressed timeline of mere few years if not months.
Given The Internet is an information superhighway as global billions — Well-versed internet users with mere clicks away — for this tech adoption. This technology adoption is like no other. 1 million users in mere 5 days. 100 million users in a month. Unprecedented. This entire AI “release” is only 5 months old at the time of writing this, in March 2023.
Given the context now, I would speculate that the next major breakthrough is a year out or months. Breakthrough in the alternative sectors and industries, leveraging AI to be exact. Think of the Financial, Economic, and even Social impact when AI knowledge-accelerating and rapid prototyping is applied in research for the treatment of illnesses and diseases, and vaccines. The best bit? The OpenAI, ChatGPT[version] is open source, and it brings this knowledge powerhouse across all internet-connected (or not — eventually AI to be offline accessible, in your pocket) nations and users, as a baseline.
Consider the following; A clinical doctor professional — an AI or AI-assisted Human — in developing nations to help diagnose illnesses, or Time Consuming, complex Legal, and Tax queries which would now be assisted with and accessible for all in developed nations.
All that #AI #AppliedKnowledge — not just an Information library with implied user cognitive overload, — is now accessible mere seconds away and costing pennies or cents.
I hope you can now appreciate the disruption looming on the horizon, with a positive twist that new use cases and AI-augmented businesses will bootstrap further economic GDP growth. Get ready for AI, Machines, and Robotics to be most likely contributing to the economic welfare of your geographic location, — that is for the better, given the present macroeconomic reality.
Perhaps I digress. Just a bit.
The Business of Consulting
Back to that technology consulting perspective. The traditional “People, Process, and Technology” 60’s sourced mantra is now evolving, as generative AI, Google’s #bardai or OpenAI’s #ChatGPT is likely to improve and underpin the first two components, within organizations, when adapting to this new era. Just imagine your ideas rapidly transforming from a napkin concept to a working wireframe or even a full MVP. And guess what, you don’t have to imagine — this really did happen.
This is the sheer creative genius that the #ChatGPT #generativeAI not just “promises to be”, but rather it is already here.
AI Augmentation is a whole new skill that we need to start exploring sooner than later.
As Maggie Lake notes in the recent Real Vision Episode, “#Technology is crashing into the macro [economic growth disruption], — whether you know it or don’t”.
In the recent personal development example, let me reflect on my recent executive courses in data-driven decision-making and digital leadership. The course was great, in fact, I must say it was some top-class learning there. Let’s face it though, it is the retention of knowledge is the typical challenge, with 90% of information potentially lost within five weeks. And I believe that with the AI-augmented know-how, we’re experiencing with ChatGPT-4 — that game has changed. #TotalRecall (not sure if it’s the best-suited hashtag but forgive the pun)
For those who may not have expert friends on speed dial or access to expert social communities of subject matter experts (apart from Reddit and Quora), this AI chatbot is truly groundbreaking. It represents a workplace disruption unlike any we’ve seen before. So, prepare for the transformative impact of generative AI on consulting roles and technology in ways we are just beginning to comprehend.
When considering the industries and sectors the #generativeAI is likely to disrupt, I also realised I could simply ask the very AI to just tell me. The list of disruptions is long and probably non-exhaustive.
What industries and sectors is generative AI likely to disrupt?
My point is that #GenerativeAI will disrupt all Sectors and Industries which rely on general and specific focus knowledge alike to generate or update digital artifacts.
In Consulting, this is likely to impact
- Marketing, Media, Content Writers, Digital media — Front-Ending commercial conversations, along with the Strategic Big Picture
- Technical Evaluation, Assessments & Recommendations
- Policy Writing, Evaluation, and Enforcement (by Security Controls, Guardrails, and Compliance)
- Data Analytics, to an extent, as AI will be evolved faster to extract insights from whole and diverse data lakes.
- “Source Code” Developers — for the exception of specific use cases, a vast amount of best practices, templates can be AI-generated
Similarly, in other Consultancy as well as ad-hoc Project-like engagements alike, disruption may also cover other vast areas, and my specific focus to explore in the future;
- Legal, Tax, Audit — report generation and assessments based on information. Technology like OpenBanking coupled with ad-hoc queries and documents will enable AI to make evaluations and recommendations perhaps passing to a human Partner for the last stage for final Review and Approval.
- Global Investments and Fund Management (Policies & Positioning) as AI will be able to pool multiple sources of data to evaluate conditions — perhaps continuously — and adjust portfolios accordingly.
- Policy Writing, Evaluation, and Enforcement (HR, Compliance, Legal) — consider #Continuous evaluation of HR policies and compliance review based on first principles.
You can think of the #generativeAI as a great Intern who will require north-star, direction, and then a final Human (for now) to review.
Imagine the hours of high-value work saved, and thus business gaps to be tackled by the new generation of startups targetting those pain points.
There will be new lean-and-mean startup consultancies and the Incumbents vs Innovator dilemma will work full circle wonders, particularly this time.
The Strategic AI Paved Road Ahead
TLDR, Embrace the change and thrive in this exhilarating new era! #ExponentialAge #ChatGPT #innovation
As we consider the era of automation and generative AI, there is an understandable concern that professionals may inadvertently automate themselves out of a job. However, this technological revolution is not just simply about replacing human tasks with machines.
This #AI Revolution emphasises the value of human ingenuity and creativity in identifying new business use cases and driving paradigm shifts.
In the coming years-not-decades, those who can harness the power of generative AI and merge it with their own unique insights will be rewarded the most. Think of the blue-sky visionaries and blue-ocean strategists who can disrupt industries on an entirely new level.
On that note, strategic planning and blue ocean thinking have never been more critical, as businesses strive to stay ahead of the competition and carve out their niche in an ever-evolving market. Despite the significance of strategy, 97% of its importance is often overlooked due to time constraints, as already highlighted in a recent Harvard Business Review article.
Not for much longer!
This is the time to think long and hard, — pun intended to ensure growing sustainable and adaptive businesses in this dawn of the age. And it will be critical for leaders to make time for strategic thinking and embrace the potential of this new Tech, as #AI is poised to play a pivotal role in this transformation.
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen”
The AI Roadmap
There is a great write-up by Ahmed on What jobs will ChatGPT take in the next 5 years, as the one to get started with, to deep dive into the specific roles potentially at risk.
The investment thesis will remain the same across the entire AI-enhancing and augmenting field for all these types of solutions. Naturally the Platforms, (FB, Linkedin, Medium, and similar) may have the first play at this disruptive effect, given the readily engaged and accessible audience. It’s the novel use cases to increase further adoption and traction which may be a priority.
The Real Vision’s Raoul Pal interviewed Emad Mostaque (Co-founder, and CEO of StabilityAI) in the fall of 2022. It was a mind-boggling and surreal hair-raising thought and forecast exercise on the topic of AI and what the future may and will look like.
Again, That was in November 2022. And writing this post in march 2023, I must concede that not only much forecast has been correct and “achievement unlocked” from AI innovation perspectives but what the future may hold in the year ahead — because it’s too darn impossible to see the full ramifications of AI on the long term horizon.
Now, the newest interview with Emad Mostaque with Raoul, which aired a few days ago, is just as impactful. Progress and growth in the last 4–5 months have been nothing short of extraordinary — “AI is The Biggest Economic Impact of All Time w/ Raoul Pal & Emad Mostaque”
Take time to watch this, and let that interview and update sink in.
I mean it.
Watch it.
Opportunities & Positioning
Let’s detour a bit and explore #Growth Opportunities in other sectors and ecosystems. My personal thinking and consideration are around those Digital Artefacts.
Think “Metaverse” — now with accelerated Virtual World creation and increased quality of production ought to make the dream of VR a more tangible reality, sooner than later.
Remember how clunky your first VR experience used to be? Sure, you were impressed, but then quickly disappointed it was not a high-quality “Matrix-like” experience. Well, thanks to Generative AI, the next-gen experience is to be upscaled in quality and quantity. In fact, It’s already in the works, — read this breakdown in Five levels of generative AI for Gaming by Jon Radoff. Enough to get excited about immersive gaming with content overload.
As you can tell, I’m quite bullish on next-generation Gaming on whichever platform has #VirtualReality capability. Think EA, Activision Gaming productions, and Vendors like Samsung, Sony, Microsoft as well as Meta (Facebook with Oculus Rift) for starters.
Everything Digital, Everything accelerated
At this point I find I must mention Cathy Wood’s ARKK Invest Big Ideas Report (2023) which is a collection of thematic forward-looking ETF, based on technological disruptions across all sectors; Blockchain, AI, Self-Driving Cars, and so on.
The ARKK Invest Artificial Intelligence (ETF) may be of interest to achieving exposure to this technological advancement, and here is a link to learn more.
Most notably the #exponentialpotential topic has been covered as well which is quite insightful. Here is a link to the full 28-minute video.
It’s quite a lot to take in.
On this topic, — Do you know what a lot to take? The latest interview from the CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman and Lex Fridman.
Remember the well-known line by John C. Maxwell — “Change is inevitable. Growth is optional”. There is more.
There are Risks with #AI generating digital artifacts — reports, posts, drafts, and so on. Though, this Human “Identity Crisis” is solvable with immutable digital public signatures which can be validated by anyone on #blockchain. See, there is the connection we make now, as multiple technologies, Digital Identity, self-sovereign, decentralised store of value (BTC), and Accelerated Machine Learning with early generation Artificial Intelligence paradigm shifts, all converge bringing use cases and solutions to problems that frankly, we’ve not really had before.
On data privacy and security, the Distributed Knowledge may be connected to the same ChatGPT model for the average web user, but these AI generalised models can be reused and trained “offline” on private business datasets.
Think of Tax, Legal, and Audit consultancy uses and risks. This effectively enables the use of the foundational OpenAI (ChatGPT v4 or newer) as a baseline and training it for internal use without private data leakage. This work is still underway, and as one would expect the incumbents will take longer to adapt — in my opinion — protecting the data/reputation and status. There is an opportunity here. A digital transformation opportunity.
Let’s take it up a notch, — Space Tech.
See AI in Space. I hope by now, you watched the Big Ideas by Ark Invest.
Sounds shiny, but most may not grasp that such a Next Human Journey will be ML, AI, and Robotics-driven. Complexity in space is vast and room for errors is plenty. The Space journey is entirely predicated on the emergence of effective AI models which will ingest vast amounts of data to make the most appropriate split-second decisions. Humans are to be both the Mission strategists and Cargo. It may sound fantastic, and yet it’s already here in the early evolutionary stage.
The opportunity here is Space and Telco (once again) as we build great “digital railroads” in space. Here are some ETFs and Funds to explore, to name a few;
- Guide to Space Industry ETF Investing
- Why Invest in Space Exploration & Innovation? (AI Enabled)
- Space ETF | Take part in the future’s megatrend
- The Space (ETF) Race: UFO, ROKT and ARKX
There are also interesting VC, Accelerator Hubs, and thought pieces to explore if you’re interested in keeping up on the bleeding edge, albeit all rapidly evolving.
- AI and Autonomous Driving — Artificial Intelligence +
- How to get a Venture Capital job: Know about AI
- Generative AI: The New Frontier For VC Investment
- A new frontier in artificial intelligence
This blog turned out to be a lot longer to write up than initially planned. I don’t know about you, but I’m both excited and frightened about the next decade. More interestingly, that Next Human Journey — Humans on Mars is more realistic now than even a couple of years before — ironically, the least of my present concerns.
And, No, The ChatGPT-4 was of no use given the bleeding edge evolution on this topic and my own personal reading and research spent on this — you get to read the latest and greatest — that’s all that’s on my mind.
I hope you have learned enough insights to delve deeper and learn more hands-on. You may wish to visit the OpenAI chatbot and start augmenting. :)
If you want to keep the conversation going, comment and connect on LinkedIn.
J
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