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Everybody is talking about AI

My year end reflection - on AI. 

Proceed with caution: To be fair, I don't know much about AI. I know ChatGPT (I mean, who doesnt. Even my cat does). I have used it and found myself alternating between being blown away and feeling meh. 

I have seen midjourney images (never tried) and AI driven story lines and plot lines. Quite impressive really. And apparently it has won a creativity contest as well. 

And at a conference recently someone said, AI will be like electricity in future - that was a different way of looking at it. It could become as ubiquitous as electricity, but like anything these days will have a steep tab attached to it. And the moment that happens, it will be preserve of a few who can afford it. 

Organizations will have (many already have) co-pilots enabled - and beautiful mails will be read and replied to by AI. (Human communication hopefully will keep pace.)

But keeping all that aside, can AI really replace L&D professionals? Let us look at the points of engagement of L&D

  • AI can do a great job of creating Individual learning plans without the tedium of having to do this person by person. What used to be a largely hi-po audience can theoretically be opened to all. (Leave aside questions of effectiveness or if companies will do it)
  • AI can do a equally great job in evaluating learning effectiveness (not all parts, but a large part of it)
  • AI assisted content curation will be the rage- will it be effective, we don't know, but they will do a good job for sure. Especially if it is hyper personalised. So, AI driven hyper personalised learning will be a thing. All these content driven platforms will personal AI either free or at cost.
  • AI assisted content creation - audio, video will make content creation very easy. So, what happens to huge content farms companies have created? Tough to say. Universities can offer their content to companies for them use via an AI - this might well be a business model
  • Today to search a good course is a pain on all platforms - AI can easily search and summarise, much faster and better and efficiently. 
Here is the kicker - most companies are still here when it comes to AI, but what if we moved into skill building?
  • Can AI assist in skill building? I think yes and some companies are already doing this. By analysing behaviour, mails and conversation, an AI skill building assistant is quite a rage. Think LXP powered by AI. 
  • Can AI assist in coaching? Yes, again, I think AI coaches will be the rage. Think of it as how chat bots work today. They can do an initial level of coaching until human intervention is needed. Of course, some work needs to be done, but my suspicion is someone is at it already. 
  • Can AI assist in Talent Management? This will be a stretch, but again it is doable. 
  • The better data that you have, the easier it is to engage AI to do the grunt work. Until it takes over :)
So, what happens to hooman trainers and facilitators and content creators and coaches like me? Well, we have to do what the AI cannot do. Like how photographers suddenly lost their mojo with digital photography became ubiquitous, but found their feet when people realised that quantity is not quality. 

The comparison is not the same, but atleast for the foreseeable future "sub text" still belongs to humans. I dont know till how long this lead will last. But if you are in any of these fields (or for that matter in any field) build your expertise. Do what AI cannot do. Join the dots that AI cannot. Remember for now, AI uses data from the past. 

So, as long as you can think originally, you are ahead of the game. For now. 

Aside: As an original thinker, I think I need to put what I write behind a firewall. 




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