In a recent blog post, Jonathan Tarud, the CEO of Koombea, an international digital product development company, stated¹:
“Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the major developments of our time. In particular, Machine Learning, and the implications that go with it, is shaking up many aspects of how we do things, allowing us to deploy AI software where we previously used a human or a more inefficient process.
“Sometimes this is to the consternation of people, particularly those who worry about AI systems and machine intelligence taking over human jobs, or perhaps the sci-fi scenario of AI being intelligent and organised enough to overrule humans.”
AI, then, is clearly no laughing matter. Certainly, the perceived threats to jobs and overruling humans are not.
But could – or should – we perhaps approach the topic of AI a little more lightly?
When I read Mr Tarud’s post, I recalled an article I read not too long ago entitled Business and Life Lessons from John Cleese by Tren Griffin.² Although the article was published in 2018 – many moons before all the current AI hype – it came to mind because of lesson 1 as published:
“1. He who laughs most, learns best. People learn nothing when they’re asleep and very little when they’re bored. It’s absolutely no good just writing a straight script and then sticking half a dozen jokes in, because people would just remember the jokes and forget the teaching points.”
The article goes on to give a couple of examples:
“When the food network personality Alton Brown was making his television series Good Eats he had a sign over his studio door that said: ‘Laughing brains are more absorbent.’” Comedians are in their own way teachers since the core of comedy is truth.
Warren Buffett is an example of someone who likes to tell jokes when making a point. To illustrate this point, Buffett tells this joke:
“A man says to a veterinarian: ‘Can you help me? Sometimes my horse walks just fine and sometimes he limps.’ The vet replies: ‘No problem. When he’s walking fine, sell him.”
In telling this story Buffett was trying to convey the point that buyers must be careful when someone is trying to sell them something. Just lecturing to someone about the importance of careful due diligence is not as memorable as a joke. Buffett is trying to convey the idea that it is always important to consider a seller’s motivation.”
If you transpose this thinking to the topic of AI, it suggests – at least to me – that perhaps, in attempting to communicate the benefits of AI, AI businesses could use, if they don’t already, a lighter approach in their communications with real people to help those people understand the benefits of AI and shift them away from the consternation Mr Tarud talks about. AI businesses need to make real people their friends, not their enemies (that way, revolution lies).
“Artificial Intelligence represents a huge opportunity across virtually every sector. It has already proven to be disruptive, but it is anticipated that it will be much more widespread over the next few years.”³
This may be so, but with the benefit of over 30 years in marketing, design and IP law collectively, I suggest that AI businesses should not underestimate the power of real people in influencing the path that the development of artificial intelligence takes.
As with every product or service, the overall success of artificial intelligence in everyday life – and commerce – will rely on real people accepting AI and not rebelling against it, whether through non-adoption, regulation or, worst of all, violence.
¹. Jonathan Tarud, 7 Recent AI Developments: Artificial Intelligence News, Updated 22 October 2024, https:// www.koombea.com/blog/7-recent-ai-developments/.
². https://25iq.com/2018/04/28/business-and-life-lessons-from-john-cleese/.
³. Jonathan Tarud, see footnote 1.
