Reflections

  AI Will Be Decided in the Real World, Not in the Lab There is something increasingly odd about the way the AI industry talks about Artificial General Intelligence, Superintelligence, the Singularity and the risks associated with them. The language is becoming increasingly grandiose: AI will transform the world, AI may surpass human intelligence, AI may become uncontrollable, AI may eventually pose an existential threat to humanity.   Yet when I look at these conversations from the perspective of someone who works with businesses and is actually trying to use AI to improve productivity, I find a fundamental disconnect. The AI industry, particularly the technologists within it, seems to have very little understanding of how the real world works — not just of the risks of AI, but even of its benefits. And that disconnect matters because businesses are ultimately the ones that have to adopt, pay for, manage and live with this technology.       Redefini...

Confidence vs. Arrogance: The Tone Problem in Modern Advertising - How many people in marketing actually stop and ask: what is the tone of my advertising? This seemingly small question is in reality lying at the core of advertising. Your advertising doesn't just communicate what your brand sells; it communicates what kind of brand you are. Furthermore, the consumer doesn't separate your brand from the behaviour of the people representing it in your advertising. And that is where the tone comes in – what you say, how you state it and in what context – all three are vital elements to brand communication       Take a step back from the job for a second. Put yourself in the audience's seat. You come across an ad whose central characters — through their expressions, their hand gestures, the whole setting — carry a feeling of being superior to anyone not using the product. Or the ad looks down on the competition, openly or through implication. Now ask: how does that reflect...

  In the midst of today's atmosphere when everyone is gung-ho about AI, few if any are speaking of the specifics of AI adoption and implementation inside companies. AI is not a magic wand—it needs to be fit into the organisation, its processes, and made a part of the life of the people who populate the organisation. It won't get its due just by hyperbole and constant focus on the promises of AI. Someone, and a lot of someones, has to get down to the hardcore practicalities of using it. Individual AI usage ≠ organisational AI implementation. A company can buy an excellent AI tool and still fail because it doesn't know how to integrate it into actual workflows.       People don't resist AI merely because they fear AI. They resist disruption to functioning processes. And therefore: the first implementation objective should not be transformation. It should be integration. That creates a two-stage implementation model: Stage 1: Fit AI into the existing process. S...