by Peter A. Arthur-Smith
“You’re going to have to pardon my French, but that’s complete BS.”Quote from article by Christopher Mims, Wall Street Journalist Review, October, 2024, about Yann LeCun, New York University Professor and Meta Platforms AI guru.
French born LeCun was apparently downplaying AI’s mythical, potential impact. He was also quoted as commenting, “Today’s AI models, although useful, are far from rivaling the intelligence of our pets, let alone us.” Remarks like these coming from one of the founding experts on AI should encourage our tech giants, next wave AI upstarts, our media, and ourselves to put the current AI craze into perspective.
Furthermore, he was also quoted as sharing that “…today’s AIs aren’t in any meaningful sense intelligent.” Also that …” AI startups are ready to extrapolate its recent development in ways that I find are ridiculous.” So, he isn’t the only one with AI reservations that question the incredible, recent hype tech giants and their start-up brethren have poured upon us. That’s not to say that we should let our guard down either.
I’ve personally found myself battling against the many AI intrusions on LinkedIn and allied internet offerings, where AI is almost being forced down our throats. It wants us to subsume AI’s intelligence as a substitute for our own personal intelligence, where some of the former is banal and close to kindergarten level. With donning my more cynical hat, I’m even suspicious that program providers like Microsoft, Google and Meta are invoking system “error” updates as ploys to access our files for feeding their AI machine-learning appetites. An August 2024 article by Jake Perez, LinkedIn Editor, entitled Publishers Slam Google AI Search, pointed out that “Google AI-Search is giving publishers reason to cry foul.” I wouldn’t be surprised if a publishers’ class-action suit doesn’t hit the headlines within the foreseeable future.
More important is that leaders across the workworld should become more vigilant about such intrusions. If AI is to warrant serious consideration, then it should be viewed as a medium to complement human ingenuity rather than replace it. If we don’t find the means to enable AI and humans to co-exist, then both sides are destined for major trouble rather than lift our economies to a new level.
One way leaders can define any human-AI coexistence is through two management-leadership philosophies – efficiency and effectiveness. “Efficiency” is the Wall Street and business community preferred term for profit at the expense of elegance, quality and durability. Our younger generations have been duped into this way of thinking, owing to their historically leaner budgets, without appreciating what’s been lost. Efficiency is also the signal to squeeze people out of jobs by means of AI rather than utilize their talents in other beneficial ways.
Effectiveness, on the other hand, will bring that desirable elegance, quality and durability through fundamental innovation, breakthroughs and higher people engagement. Its main drawback is that it requires us to “think,” something that’s quite elusive to AI…a truth that our hype-masters aim to suppress. Effective leaders should set-out to conjure a world where AI and people can benefit from one another, rather than aim to crush or replace one another…all for the sake of efficiency and short-term profit.
Who’s going to be enough of a Cassandra to challenge Wall Street and its contemporary exchanges to rise above the efficiency mantra and explore the following complementary possibilities? Namely:
AI/Machine Roles……………………………………………….Human Roles
Efficiency Thinking……………………………………………..Effectiveness Thinking
* Routine activity resource * Original idea resource
* Inspection/quality control resource * Creative idea resource
* Financial management resource * Empathy resource
* Progress monitoring resource * Compelling vision resource
* Sourcing material/component resource * Pathfinding/strategy resource
* Information resource * Principles and values resource
* Management reporting resource * Leadership inspirational resource
* Efficiency resource (cost-economy, * Effectiveness resource (innovative,
bare-bones, pragmatic, refining, elegance, resourceful, breakthroughs,
profit-conscious, no-frills, spartan, etc) durability, value-conscious, quality, etc.)
By embracing these contrasts, we can sense how they balance and coexist with each other. It will also mean taking the education of humans to a different level, so they can perform and leverage their more natural capabilities. People enabled us over the centuries to arrive at this spot and we don’t need the more mercenary among us to invade such potential coexistence through narcissistic and voracious financial appetites. We need to move away from the latter personalities to have more enlightened leaders (ELs), where we can enjoy the fruits of both worlds. ELs will put AI into perspective and embrace human talent in all its dimensions!