We continue to be enamored with all the things AI does for us. We feel productive because AI speeds up drafting emails, doing reporting, transcribing meeting notes, managing our calendars, doing our research.
Then we are astounded, not just with the tasks we no longer have to do, but with the way AI amplifies these tasks. It just doesn’t automate the work, but it enables us to scale this work at levels that had been unimaginable.
Seeing the volume of things it does for us, create an illusion of progress. But too often, what we are doing is just scaling bad habits or things that we probably shouldn’t be doing. As I’ve said so many times before, AI gives us the possibility of creating crap at the speed of light.
As we become more fascinated with the power of AI doing these things, we may be missing the fundamental issue: Should we be doing these things at all?
This question is fundamental, it precedes all our experience with AI, but AI now makes it much more important.
Year after year, we see declining results across too many aspects of our business. Yet we continue to be obsessed in doing activities and tasks that don’t really matter. The volume of tasks and activities has taken precedence over the outcomes they create.
Technology, including AI, has distracted us from the fundamental question of whether we should be doing these things.
In doing this, we miss the real power and opportunity behind AI:
- Are we using AI to challenge our thinking, to challenge what we are currently doing and whether we should continue doing those things?
- Are we using AI to help us think about what we should eliminate?
- Are we using AI to help us rethink the work we do, enabling us to more effectively achieve our goals?
- Are we thinking outside of what AI can do, focusing on what it can do and whether we have the skills to do those things it can’t?
- Are we using AI to eliminate the meaningless, so we can focus on that which creates meaning for us and for our customers?
If we aren’t doing these things, we aren’t innovating. We aren’t making a difference or creating the impact we should.
If we aren’t using AI for these things, then all we are doing is automating busywork, thinking it is progress.
Afterword: This is the AI generated discussion of this post. This is one of those embarrassing discussions that is actually better than my article. Be sure to listen to this. Enjoy!
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