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strategic simplicity
I write all of these things I post into an offline word processor first. Then I do some light editing, copy and paste into the blogging software, and then ultimately push publish.
Maybe you read that and thought so what?
Big deal? Obvious.
We all have these simple little habits that keep us organized. They are each of them personal strategies to creep us towards whatever definition of success we’ve chosen. And each of these strategies are fundamental building blocks of who we are how we can get stuff done.
I was observing a coworker yesterday inputing some data into a spreadsheet. She made a mistake and quickly realized that she had entered the data into the wrong cell. For me, I would have highlighted the cell, Ctrl-Xed it and then highlighted the right cell and Ctrl-Ved it, and been off to the next item. She used the mouse, located the undo button on the menu, clicked it to erase what she had written, then highlighted the correct cell and retyped the data. Same result, but my method would have been literally five times faster.
Never assume the little things are obvious or so what? moments. We might spend hours writing and talking about our big strategies for getting stuff done, but often I think I could teach a course on all the little things I’ve learned about getting things done and each individual step I take to accomplish it all.
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social games
I spent nearly a decade feeding the massive social media networks like Facebook and Instagram with my creative output.
What did it get me?
I could tell you that I learned some skills in social media engagement, but that would be a bit of an exaggeration because an invisible algorithm did most of the work.
I could tell you that it gave me an excuse to write and create, but that would be something of a cop out because one shouldn’t need such excuses to practice one’s craft.
I could tell you that it gave me an audience, but honestly I could have currated an email list of my friends and family and had nearly as many eyes to see what I made.
What it really did was create value for someone else.
What the social media networks never admit is that the house is only one guaranteed to win, and it’s always their house. Sure, some folks hit a jackpot and walk out richer and wiser, but most of us spend our creative chips and they vanish into the coffers of the app or network.
I can’t tell you that you shouldn’t play the social media game, but I can suggest that there are far fewer winners there than there are the rest of us. And I can tell you that I have lately been, and will continue to be, putting more effort into building my own (much smaller and less social) networks with my creative energies.
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human disadvantage
I don’t have a problem with Artificial Intelligence tools.
I do have a few problems with what I call the AI advantage.
That is to say, I have a problem with the idea that these artificial intelligence engines, generative algorithms and the like, that they are somehow above the moral and legal code to which the rest of us are obliged to adhere.
AI is just another tool, after all. It can do amazing things for businesses and individuals. I can drive change, teach, inform, advance and help give a leg up to anyone trying to bootstrap an idea into reality in a world already saturated with successes.
But it needs to be used in a way that is fair.
And if we cannot do that through regulation, it is probably incumbent upon us a society to accept and normalize a moral code for technology systems that mimic the things that sets humans apart from the rest of nature: intelligence, creativity and thought.
Computers are faster. AI systems work across geographic barriers with ease. And for now these systems are accessible to a broad public. Advantages.
And they have these inherent advantages as a foundational aspect of what they are and how they have been built. So, we should not let them carelessly break the rules which we have put in place for people. Specifically, we should not let them ignore copyright rules and fail to respect the intellectual property rights of humans.
We would not tolerate a human being building a business on stolen property, so—even if we can’t seem to make our governments stand up and regulate it—we should, as humans, prevent this particular AI advantage from becoming accepted as a moral norm.