The New AI and ChatGPT

 AI

Artificial Intelligence

ML

Machine Learning

No it is not coming for your job but will rather augment what you do today.

More on that in a moment.

Here is a quick story about a Sci-fi magazine that had to close submissions because of the swarm of AI written material:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/sci-fi-becomes-real-as-renowned-magazine-closes-submissions-due-to-ai-writers/

Here is a blurb about 

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/generative-ai-is-coming-for-the-lawyers/

... and a quick clip from that one ...

“Legal document drafting can be a very labor-intensive task that AI seems to be able to grasp quite well. Contracts, policies, and other legal documents tend to be normative, so AI's capabilities in gathering and synthesizing information can do a lot of heavy lifting.”

The strength of AI is in the performance of repetitive tasks.  You can visualize this as a machine in say an assembly line of a car. Where do we put robots today? Highly repetitive tasks of a very uniform standard nature.  Yes. Now take that to the intellectual world such as writing (see above) and apply the same concept. However it cannot fully replace the human in the task.

There is a lot of space there in the world to fill in the work with machines. It is already happening and has been happening for centuries.  Think of washing machines for your laundry. We used to do all the work washing each item of clothing by hand. Now the human manages the machine that does the grunt work of washing. The human is still present.

Tomorrow (today) we will have new jobs that manage the AI to ensure it is staying on task and target. Some jobs will go away, some will be created, some groups of people will gain, and some will lose. 

The wealthiest in the world see two solutions to staying ahead in the coming decades: capital and creativity.  All else will become tertiary.

Best,

J.W. Gant

Product Management Leadership

 Hello,

A recent experience highlighted something, again, that is worth exploring. How do we become Product Managers?  It is an apprenticeship and as such is unlike many or most other modern disciplines (higher education, are you listening?).  You can go to nursing school and become a nurse, law school and become a lawyer, but Product Management?  No.

I was recently asked by a recruiter to please speak with the Head of Product at a large wealth management technology offshoot company who wanted to hire some help.  I was immediately very skeptical as the industry is known (by me personally) to be well behind the times regarding all things tech. But the recruiter was persuasive.  I took everything said with a heavy grain of salt and went into the conversation having done some prep work.

She/him, the Head of Product, the executive at the company responsible for its products & services, has a background in economics and finance and decades with various New England wealth management companies.  I decided to dumb down my talk dramatically and see how it played.

Within 5 minutes I could see his/her head spinning.

She/he had essentially complained about the job of heading product management listing all the common areas of focus where we professional PM executives apply our frameworks, knowledge, processes, and people skills, then stated she/he had no idea what to do about it and needed help.

This executive told me she/he had no idea how to do their job. As Head of Product.

I then stated I'd had interviews where the CTO ripped off my ideas, assured this person I didn't believe it was happening today, then said I'd give these couple "for free" and listed off the basic frameworks I would use to handle the situation presented.

Head spinning.

Lesson. There really is an enormous gap between people who are in the position and what they actually needed to do to get there at a technologically modern company. If you are an executive at a company that is not traditionally known as a "technology" company, or a "product" company, you have to do more than just say it.  There is real nuts & bolts to doing it.  The first step is accepting that you have much to learn. As we all do.

Best,

J.W. Gant