Invasion AI

An AI algorithm walks into a bar and says, “I’ll have what everyone else is having.”

There is a lot of back and forth going on about AI and how quickly it’s overtaking the world and making humans obsolete. I've seen this happen a few times before with other world changing technologies. Also, I don't have blinders on. there are 1000 conversations to be had about AI and it's many facets, this just one of them.

Before I start I want to acknowledge that AI is the new buzzword, replacing the word blockchain. Squeezing AI into your product helps put shareholders at ease. That aspect will pass, it always does. Right now you're hearing about AI 24/7, you can't even buy some Oreos without a “now with AI!” Label on the package. I promise you. Once a new buzz word comes along it will abruptly stop.

A few years back I owned a comic book store. Digital comics were right on the cusp. Direct market retailers were concerned but as long as it stayed on its side of the fence there was peace. At the time the digital version of the issue would come out four months after the print copy hit the new stand.

Then one day all the retailers in the tri-state area were called to the time life building in New York for a meeting about new publishing initiatives going forward. (this was announcing the New52 for those in the know). Then they let drop that along with a refresh of their entire publishing line they would also be offering digital comics same day and date.

Chaos ensued.

Retailers jumped up and down screamed and hollered and demanded to know why. The publishers offered up of worldwide distribution as a reason and also noted “nostalgia is not a business model” the only thing that quelled the angry retailers was the promise of an open bar.

Days after the meeting a handful of retailers decided not to take this sitting down so they all banded together to put a stop to this.

They called it "the fight against digital”

As I'm sure you know it was about as effective as movie theaters fighting against VHS or blockbuster fighting against streaming. They should've been trying to figure out how they could fit In the new digital landscape. The genies not going back in the bottle.

I'm old enough to remember when word processors replaced typewriters and became a household item. There is a brief time where you didn't get a document from somebody that didn't have 12 different colors 14 different fonts and criminal use of bold and italic. Then people calmed down.

That's what's going on right now with AI.

I read somewhere somebody talking about ideas. They were an novelist. They went on to say how people would approach them all the time saying that they had a great idea for a story and they could tell the idea to the author and he could write the story and they would split the profits.

I'll let you in on an open secret. Ideas are useless. Everyone has ideas. It's if and how you execute those ideas that matter. Some people look at AI and see the promise of their ideas being executed without doing the work. Much like the document abusers of the past these people will also fall by the wayside.

My limited but ever growing experience with AI I've come to learn that it has the potential to be an effective tool. An excellent servant but a terrible master. I've made a list below of the type of tasks that AI is suited for. Granted this is only the tip of the iceberg but I predict this is how AI will integrate into day-to-day life.

-Take this list of skills on my resume and put them in as ascending order of most in demand.
-What issue of the amazing Spider-Man did the Punisher first appear in? (Spoiler alert: #129)
-Take this document and format it in YAML
-Can you describe the image for an alt tag for visually impaired
-How much did I spend in 2023 going to McDonald's on a Monday?
-Can you point out spelling and punctuation errors in this email while not taking liberties?

Whether we like it or not AI is here to stay and we're not gonna be able to team up and make it go away like it's a vape store moving into our neighborhood. What we can do collectively is do our best to control the narrative through a practical perspective on the matter. It's going to make a lot of things suck and it's going to make a few things better. It's going to elevate a few people further up the mountain to a place where you had to do a treacherous climb to achieve. I still know people that are mad at WYSIWYG for this very thing.

It's not gonna be as bad as we think and it's not gonna be as good as we think. But it isn't going anywhere.