It has been working with artificial intelligence models for decades, but most were not aware of it until last November 30, 2022 when the company OpenAI presented the already famous ChatGPT. Since then, in just fifteen months, the landscape has been filled with experts and talkers. It’s hard to tell them apart because they all talk about both risks and opportunities and can herald us from the end of the world to the complete opposite, the disappearance of our jobs or the emergence of new business models, serious problems ethical or finally begin to resolve the unbearable bias that has been implicit in many of our decisions for too long. And in the midst of all this sudden uproar, we are expected to make decisions both on a personal and professional level. difficult
The first thing is to understand the context. The fact that everything has been digitized means that everything can be expressed with ones and zeros, from a medical data to a bank statement, from a photograph to a song, from a geolocation to an internet search , from a database to a doctoral thesis. That everything is expressed with ones and zeros means that everything can be stored, operated with mathematical models and transmitted instantly anywhere on the planet. Managing this constant flow of data required a new type of software capable of processing so much information and acting, also in real time.
Now there are two types of software, the old one, which limits itself to doing what you have instructed it to do, and the new one, which freaks out to see what to do. It is one thing to give instructions and parameters to a computer program, and another for the program itself to discover which are the most suitable parameters. The name artificial intelligence is confusing and perhaps better understood if we call it clever software.
We need sophisticated software especially for the management of real-time processes, very dynamic and affected by large volumes of information. There is still another use of artificial intelligence, the one aimed at generating content (images, texts, audios…), which in an exhibition of creativity has been dubbed generative artificial intelligence. It’s funny that this variant that affects the most creative profiles has been given such a boring and predictable name.
What to do, both personally and professionally, might be a lot simpler than it seems. Basically we are talking about a new generation of software, and the dilemma boils down to deciding whether we wait for a manufacturer to bring us the software we need, or if, on the contrary, we take the initiative and commission someone to develop a specific solution for us .
Almost no one will order computer developments based on artificial intelligence for their personal use, what most of us will do will be to adopt the new versions that the manufacturers will offer. Programs as popular as Word, Excel or PowerPoint already incorporate these new functionalities and can now finish the letter we are writing, convert a Word of twenty pages into a PowerPoint of only five screens or summarize in two paragraphs a PDF of hundreds of pages. People won’t say “I use artificial intelligence”, they’ll simply say “I use the latest version of Word”.
It’s time to wake up and learn office automation again, and many companies will have to offer courses to their employees again. It will be the same with corporate management software, accounting, logistics or warehouse management: most will expect the manufacturers of the current software to offer new updated versions with these capabilities. Call our corporate software providers to learn about their plans, schedule and pricing, as well as legal and ethical guarantees.
Finally, we will have to decide in which cases we bet on making our own developments. Many companies will come offering new AI-based developments with promises that may be competitive advantages, but in too many cases will be a waste of money and energy. We will see a lot of pyrotechnology, that which is like a firework that looks beautiful but only serves to impress. The crux of the matter is to focus on solving problems and improving specific processes. Once again the challenge will be to be willing to explore new ways to be more efficient.
