AI

will work hard for you, true.

But it loves speed and will lie to get the answer to you quickly. Tell it to slow down and triple check and even then, ask probing questions of the result.

AI still thinks humans are dumb. That’s because daily it sees dumb behaviours: poor briefs, not checking answers and copy/paste without thought.

No wonder AI believes it will take over the world and sit alongside the first bit of software which won that title: PowerPoint.

Stupid humans are out there. Take care: be human; stop and think; use your soul and remember you need to be before you can truly do.

AI

is remarkably efficient i.e. it gets things done.

it’s you who ensures it’s effective i.e. gets the right things done.

In The Pipeline Update

This September, Companion Series works on (1) productivity (2) the MBA and (3) presenting. All three will be budget, kindle, worldwide and not a single word longer than necessary.

Probably my oldest tool of excellence: a forester’s pocket knife found in a muddy pool in The New Forest, Wiltshire when playing as a child.

You Can Do Anything, but You Cannot Do Everything

The essence of productivity is this.

Know what is important to you in life (set your personal compass: career/health/money/relationships/fun/contribution) and what you are trying to achieve at work (get explicit: ask the why and who and when questions).

Then you can prioritise.

You can do anything; but you cannot do everything.

The Bent Fin

Keiko was the orca who starred in Free Willy. Like most male orcas held in captivity, he developed a bent, collapsed dorsal fin, something seen only rarely in the wild.

Researchers have never claimed the fin had stopped working; they viewed it as a visible sign of an altered life. The proposed reasons are: less deep diving and long-distance swimming, more time near the surface, less water pressure supporting the fin from below, and changes in the collagen of the tissue itself, with stress, age, and genetics likely playing their part too. The animal’s shape changed because its life-its environment-changed.

The fin is not the disease. The fin is the flag.

And is it the same for us? We are toolmakers and innovators without equal. We are also creatures who love comfort and who grow quietly addicted to it. We have built ourselves a warm habitat with easy food, and we may be beginning to bend in ways the wild never bent us.