Individuals are more innovative than companies
Work from home + AI allows for double dipping
I am still on vacation, but managed to get some time on Friday to write a few posts. Enjoy.
I know of lots of individuals who are trying to improve their skills with generative AI. There are some companies doing this as well, but they are a minority. The majority of the executives I have spoken to in the last six months only have a very basic understanding of what generative AI can do. When I bring it up the common response is to list all the reasons why it may not be a good idea for their company (legal risk being the big one).
Individuals at companies do not have a great incentive to figure out how to use AI. If you are a content writer responsible for three blog posts per week, do you really want to start using AI, if it means expectations are a blog post (of similar quality) every 20 minutes?
But what if you used AI and did NOT tell your boss.
Vice has an interesting article on individuals who are holding down multiple jobs by using AI to automate their work. These stories have been around for years. Here are some Reddit posts where people explain what they did (and sometimes ask for advice on the morality of their choices).
What’s different about today is that GPT-4 is far more capable than python scripts - there are far more jobs that could be automated away than ever before in the past. Combine that with managers who do not understand what the new technology is capable of, and more and more people working from home, and it is not surprising that people are able to produce 2-4x (or more) than they were before. They could use that additional productivity to try for a raise, but for most people, from an economic prospective, doing two jobs for 2x the salary is going to be a “better” choice.
If you as a manager don’t figure out how to make your team more productive, you may find they become productive without you, but internalize those gains for themselves.
Keep it simple,
Edward
It is not yet clear how this will actually happen. But I really hope that the AI will help ordinary workers.
A good manager will be able to figure out how to use AI to automate less-important tasks so the team members can spend more time and energy on more-important tasks. It keeps the team more engaged and they're less likely to look for additional work on their own.