For the die-hard sceptic in all of us: the people who dismissed fire didn’t vanish, but they’re not the ones who shaped what came next. Here’s Softwire’s CTO, Tim Benjamin, with a wry introduction to our Strategic AI Transformation practice.
What if I told you that AI will change nothing?
That it’s going to be OK. Whatever the world was like before this AI thing came along, that’s how it still is and how it will be in future.
Perhaps you’d secretly want to believe me? But deep down, you wouldn’t. I think even if you were the most Bruce Willis of die-hard sceptics, you’d have to admit that things – being the whimsical fancies that they are – are not going to stay the same.
So I could tell you that AI will change nothing – and that would not be true.
But you, my dear Bruce Willis, will rejoinder that even if AI isn’t going to change nothing, it’s not going to change everything, and once I’d unravelled that rat’s-nest of double negatives, I would agree with you, Brucie. AI is not going to change everything.
So between “nothing” and “everything”, something’s going to change, therefore, and we’d have to agree on that.
But what, though?
And more importantly, will anything significant change? Anything important? Anything that matters to you? Or, indeed, me?
I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, Bruce.
Yet we can see that some things are already changing – some for the better, some for the worse – and what’s more, lots of people are trying (some of them very hard!) to change things, using AI, in extravagant numbers. We see people automating things (for that, of course, is what every technology since sharp flints and fire has been used for: the reduction of drudgery!) and we see people augmenting their own abilities (and that, also, is as old an idea as any tool – invent pointy stick, bring down big mammoth!)
We all know that the story has been told over and over: a new technology arises, a new tool is invented, and people stop doing the tedious, weak old thing and start doing the delightful, powerful new thing, and those that did lived happily ever after. Indeed, thanks to those that did, those that didn’t, (the refuseniks, the nay-sayers, the die-hards), they too lived happily ever after, in the end. Or at least their descendants – you and I, Bruce! – did. That we can argue it out like this is ultimately thanks to those who saw the potential in a flint-spark and a pointy stick, despite all those grognards who insisted fire would change nothing.
“So what, then?” – I hear you, Bruce. I’m listening. So what indeed? Frankly, I don’t know, and you don’t know, but we both know that we need to be ready. We know that we need to work together. To seize the new, to understand it, to understand what it changes – because we’ve already established it is changing things – and to ensure at the very least that those in our care, those in our charge, will benefit.
And that’s where we can work together, my dear Bruce! We, at Softwire, have become familiar, deeply familiar, with these new things – with AI – and the way it is driving change in our world. We have been curious, we have dug deep, we have found and witnessed new things that were not possible to accomplish before. We’ve glimpsed the future, Bruce! More than that, we’ve done incredible things with it!
Now, I’ll level with you, Bruce, we can’t do it alone. That’s not what we’re here for. We want to share that future with you.
Whether it’s banking, insurance, energy, whether you’re in government now Bruce! – whether you’re trying to heal people, or take people or goods safely and quickly from one place to another, or whether you’re simply trying to make people smile and fill their lives with joy – whatever it is, Bruce, it’s changing! And we at Softwire want to be part of that change with you.
We call it “Strategic AI Transformation“, it’s easier that way; but whatever it is, it’s coming – so let’s get to work, you and I.
