AI is often marketed as the ultimate productivity booster—but is more activity really the same thing as more value? In this episode of Talk to Me Petey D, we explore the difference between real productivity and performative productivity in the age of AI. Drawing on concepts from economics, knowledge work, and organizational behavior, he examines…
AI increases productivity. That is one of the main selling points that AI vendors are hawking these days. AI can certainly do many things much faster than any human could. But does that necessarily mean that it improves productivity? Industrial productivity is straightforward; inputs plus process equals outputs. If you move two machines closer to…
Not a book, but an honorable mention goes to Magnifica Humanitas by Pope Leo XIV for highlighting the inherent dignity of all people and the values of our human flaws. The Palestine Laboratory by Antony Loewenstein An eye-opening account about the Israeli arms and surveillance industry. Perpetual conflict provides a proving ground that is good…
The past few years have seen the rapid proliferation of large language model-based AI solutions. LLMs have been treated like existing cloud services which are low cost even at large scale. Recent developments are shedding light on the fact that LLMs might be quite a bitter costlier than many believed. In this episode of Talk…
Many knowledge workers feel the need to pay attention to everything single thing happening in their industry, company, and organization. There’s a real fear that if they miss something, it will hurt their performance. Can AI with its ability to sort and summarize large bodies of unstructured data come to our rescue? As I discuss…
We are used to trading a bit of our data for free services. If you’re not the customer, you’re the product, as the saying goes. Increasingly, even when we pay for products, our data often gets collected and monetized. Trading data for a free service seems fair. When you’re paying for a product, I would…
American Bulk by Emily Mester We Americans love to consume. Mester shares her family’s story centered around what they buy and keep. She shares different psychological reactions to past scarcity and how we manage that fear. This book of linked essays will make you think about your own purchasing and accumulation of stuff. Evicted by…
Responsible AI grounds system design within a framework of principles that define desired behavior and outcomes. These principles can align to a moral code of ethics, provide business risk mitigation, or a combination of the two. While the framework may consistent across organizations, each organization may have unique definitions for each principle. For example, RAI…
You are surprised that everyday people aren’t excited about a dystopian future. Eric Schmidt and several other college commencement speakers were booed when they mentioned AI and how it will impact the lives of graduates. Graduation should be a time of celebrating accomplishment and embracing the adventure of the future. AI is an unwelcome guest…
It wasn’t all that long ago that organizations purchased and maintained their own computers to run websites, mail servers, databases, and the myriads of other applications that make up our techno-landscape. This was a hassle that distracted the organization from its core purpose. Along came cloud computing as a solution. You could rent just the…