By FOR ALL THE HULLABALOO we keep hearing about Artificial Intelligence and all the advancements that will flow from it, there’s another school of thought to keep in mind.
You may be hearing it more these days, and it’s this: Perhaps the AI hype was a little overblown.
Case in point: A timely story from Computerworld with the headline The fear and hype around AI is overblown. The subhead explains it by saying this — OpenAI’s rumored “breakthrough,” called Q*, is not about to usher in the age of AGI or a humanity-crushing singularity.
Here’s why the public is reeling
It’s a interesting story that anyone who wonders about where AI is going should dig into, but here’s the gist of the argument:
“The real transition we’ve experienced in the past year has been about the transformation of AI research from private to public. The public is reeling, but not because AI technology itself suddenly accelerated. Nor is it likely to unnaturally accelerate again through some ‘breakthrough’ by OpenAI.
Actually, the opposite is true. If you look at any branch of any technology or set of technologies that approaches AI, you’ll notice that the more advanced it gets, the slower further enhancements emerge.”
The Computerworld article is authored by Mike Elgan. He describes himself as “a journalist, opinion columnist, author and podcaster who specializes in technology-enabled growth for careers, cultures and corporations. I write opinion columns, features and think pieces for a variety of publications reaching millions of readers each month.”
I did a quick LinkedIn and Duckduckgo search on Mike. It didn’t take long to find that he’s an experienced and highly credible technology analyst. He also has a wry sense of humor. On his LinkedIn profile, he simply describes himself as “The world’s only lovable tech journalist.”
Time to take a deep breath and relax
YOU GOTTA BELIEVE in a guy like that, because there are few journalists today with the huevos to describe themselves as “lovable” about anything.
Mike Eagan’s article also draws a comparison with the development of AI and the development of self-driving cars. He points out that, “Everyone was convinced that human-driven cars would be obsolete by 2015. Fast forward to 2023 and activists are disabling autonomous cars by placing traffic cones on their hoods.”
He adds this:
“(The) last 5% (of development) will likely take longer to achieve than the first 95%.
That’s how AI technologies tend to progress. But we lose sight of that because so many AI technologists, investors, boosters, and doomers are true believers with extreme senses of optimism or pessimism and unrealistic beliefs about how long advancement takes. And the public finds those accelerated timelines plausible because of the OpenAI-driven, radical changes in the culture we’ve experienced as the result of AI’s recent public access.
So, let’s all take a breath and relax about the overexcited predictions …”
That’s good advice for everyone. Keep that in mind when the next story overhyping something about AI comes along.
ANOTHER VIEW WORTH A LOOK: I’m not a regular reader of TheVerge.com, but this Q&A with a really insightful CEO (and they’re not all that common) surprised me. Just the title makes you want to read it — Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami on why the web isn’t dying after all .
JOB TITLE OF THE WEEK: I wonder what Josh Bersin, the insightful and well-known technology analyst — a guy who is THE top keynote speaker at all manner of events — feels about Inc. magazine describing him as a “human resources researcher and consultant.” Kind of like describing Shohei Ohtani as just an “athlete.”
Other trends and insights …
- Why Is Everyone So Unhappy at Work Right Now? (From WSJ.com)
- AI-powered digital colleagues are here. Some ‘safe’ jobs could be vulnerable (From BBC Worklife)
- Forget the 4-day workweek. We should be talking about the 5-day, 32-hour week instead (From FastCompany.com)
- Companies are cutting worker benefits to offset the sting of high inflation (From FoxBusiness.com)
- How employers can help the “least resilient” generation (From SHRM.org)
- AWS study finds that employers willing to pay ‘premium’ for AI-skilled workers (From HRDive.com)
- 6 ways to harness AI for organizational success (From BenefitNews.com)
- The false promise of pay-range listings (From BBC Worklife)
- Study finds that AI is all around us — and we don’t even know we’re using it (From HRBrew.com)
- This is one thing AI cannot do (and what managers can do about it (From FastCompany.com)
- What’s driving 90% of employers to plan for 2024 layoffs? (From HRExecutive.com)
Holiday trends …
- ’Tis the season: Workers say a lack of time off makes the holidays stressful (From HRDive.com)
- Reminder to HR: Holiday parties are lawsuits waiting to happen (From BenefitsNews.com)
One more thing … Why 2 great investors avoided companies with bad managers
THERE ARE PROBABLY a lot of reasons why Warren Buffett and his partner Charlie Munger were such great investors at Berkshire Hathaway, but here’s one that tops them all.
It’s this: They refused to invest in companies with bad management.
I believe the U.S. has a lot of bad managers, and many of them get paid a lot of money and get hired over and over despite how bad they are (yes, I’m talking about people like you Bob Nardelli!).
But the smartest people — and I put Munger and Buffett into that group — know that all too many companies are run by terrible managers, that’s even true of some that seem to be doing well
Fortune magazine reminded us of this last week when Charlie Munger passed away at age 99. They wrote:
“As a general rule, holding company Berkshire Hathaway does not buy companies run by bad managers. That’s a little bit unusual, as then Fortune editor-at-large Pattie Sellers pointed out to company CEO Warren Buffett and his business partner Charlie Munger, who died at age 99 this week, in a 2014 interview. ‘A lot of people like to buy good companies with bad managers and then replace them,”’she said.
Not the approach at Berkshire Hathaway, the two responded. “We tried that, with predictable results,” Buffett said, adding that ‘life is so much more fun’ when you work with good people instead of trying to reform bad ones. ‘I mean, who wants to spend their life trying to change people from their natural approaches?’ “
All of that makes perfect sense, but it makes you wonder — why don’t others see it the way Buffett and Munger do? Doesn’t it stand to reason that working with good people is preferable (and easier) than trying to rehabilitate bad ones?
If you’ve worked with some of the bad ones, as I have, you know that’s the case.
WORKING WITH GOOD PEOPLE was key to a lot of Warren Buffett’s investing prowess. As Fortune described it:
“The departed Munger, Buffett’s trusted right-hand man for decades, may have been a bit more forgiving on subpar leadership. As he once said, ‘My theory, Warren, is if it can’t stand a little mismanagement, it’s no business.’ ”
It’s that kind of wisdom that made Charlie Munger such a great investor. Let’s hope there are a few more out there like him.
Editor’s Note: I’ve written a version of this weekly wrap-up for more than 20 years — from Workforce.com to TLNT.com to Fuel50. Now, I’m doing it here. Let me know what you think at johnhollon@yahoo.com.
