It landed with a bang.
Surpassing one million users in one week.
We were a bubbling pot of emotions. Amazed, inspired, concerned, and a lovely little sprinkle of global anxiety.
It has only grown since.
In March 2024, we are looking at over 180 million users, with around 1.7 billion monthly visits.
While I use chatGPT in a number of ways, from finding studies to testing out its recipe making skills. I have also tried to move past the ‘shiny object syndrome’, constantly following new AI releases.
Shiny object syndrome by Ananya (Instagram)
It’s hard enough to keep up new technology at the best of times. Let alone when something this revolutionary comes storming in.
The industry can’t seem to get enough. Scratch that, all industries can’t seem to get enough.
And it’s peppered with many, many questions and very few answers.
Such as,
Will robotics kill jobs or create them?
That’s a tough one.
Take the role of a job. Why do we have them?
For the most part: a sense of purpose, connection, and financial stability.
Just for the record, I think there is a bigger conversation around how purpose & jobs are interconnected - but for now, we are going to use this term with regards to a ‘sense of purpose’ what gets you out of bed in the morning and to your job, which will look different for everyone.
We already know that businesses are primarily profit motivated and will always find ways to tighten their costs to be more efficient and effective. We saw this happen in the Industrial Revolution. Machines replaced human labour.
AI is the progression of this, but instead of labour it’s replacing the knowledge economy, with the ability to make decisions and solve problems.
This brings me to consider what the future might look like where purpose, connection, and financial stability are satisfied, not at a business/organisation level, but at an individual level.
Take side hustle culture, it’s fueled by a desire for more financial security, a passion or hobby, alternative income streams, and flexibility with alternate working structures.
Doesn’t AI technology, the ability to do things more effectively and potentially cheaper, give people with a passion and a hobby a better fighting chance to turn it into something?
A 2021 national report released by ING in Australia shared that nearly half (48%) of the Australians surveyed either have or are planning to start a side-hustle.
In America, 39% of working Americans report having a side hustle. Among millennials, that statistic rises to 50%.
We aren’t talking about the big bucks here, I’m talking about the people who have found a way to turn their hobby or passion into income that gives them what they need. And maybe along the way, make their lives a little more fulfilling.
It’s about supporting the individual, the creator, the artisan, the musician, the person behind the product or service.
Because we connect with them as individuals.
I’d argue we are starting to see this already with influencer culture and online creators. People have already found a way to build their own personal brand. Foster trust with their audience, created a network - a community. One that enables them to continue to create. Some more stats for you,
Almost two-thirds [nano-influencers] of all influencers are accounts with fewer than 10,000 followers on their biggest social media platform. That’s followed closely by micro-tier influencers (27.73%) and mid-tier influencers (6.38%). (Source)
It isn’t about reaching extreme heights. The annual marketing report from HypeAuditor tells us these nano-influencers have the highest engagement rate with higher levels of trust.
While this isn’t for everyone, it is just one approach to build a future that encourages us to use our skills, to grow, to learn. To make an economy driven by community. Rather than let AI ‘take over’. Making our creativity and internal drive obsolete.
We need to put the human into the work we do. Not because we can do it better, or faster, or more effectively. With AI this is looking unlikely.
But because we find meaning in what we do.
It’s why Chris Davis will write a reference letter himself instead of using AI. He does it because he is proud of the person he is writing about and wants to create something that reflects that. He even ends up learning more about them by the end of it.
Take it from him, it’s not always about the end product, it’s about what you end up learning or gaining along the way.
I think it’s about balance, use AI where makes sense while giving yourself opportunities to learn and grow as well.
What’s the balance? by Ananya (Instagram)
So while ‘jobs’ may continue to be removed and changed with more widespread adoption and advancement of AI. ‘Work’ may persist, indeed it should.
Work for our passions. Work on ourselves. Work for each other. And continue working towards a life filled with meaning and purpose. I suspect we’ll be happier for it.
Using AI to your advantage
Recently, I have noticed that the little twinge of existential dread about the future, seems to have softened.
Somehow amongst all the AI madness, I got a little more optimistic.
It might have something to do with my realization that humans have a little more agency than we give ourselves credit for.
By interrogating these overwhelmingly negative questions that persist in our conversations, I’d like us to remember that we can also use AI to our advantage.
Let’s remember who we are creating AI for after all.
For example, I have partnered with a very talented friend, to add some pizazz to these articles. She is the one creating all these beautiful animated illustrations. Adding a little more clarity to the verbal overload.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the latest trend, the latest innovation, the latest development and start to spell out doomsday.
And it’s even easier to forget that actually, we are more than capable.
With over 6 million years of evolution to get to today, there is a wealth of knowledge, culture, behaviour, networks, personal experience (I could go on) that embed our lives. And we bring this to every interaction, every piece of work, every thought, it’s infused through everything.
It’s what makes every single one of us unlike another.
Human capacity by Ananya (Instagram)
Which is why I made a choice that what I could create using DALL·E 2 today was never going to be better than what a trained designer, using AI technology to her advantage - enhancing her skillset, could do. She comes at it, through her own lens, with a different set of experiences and context that embodies what she does and how she does it today.
So why should I put more incredibly average things into the world? It’s not going to benefit anyone, least of all me.
I’d rather work with a designer, to make something really great than replace her with something generic, and mediocre.
I’d encourage you to do the same, where you can.
And while I’m at it, I’m going to continue writing. Not only because I enjoy it.
But because it’s a means to unravel the chaos in my head.
I’ll even use AI along the way, to bounce ideas around.
Until next time,
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Interested in going a ittle further? Check out the following links,
The human ability to find meaning in work is a significant aspect of our psychological and emotional well-being. Here is a study published in the Journal of Constructivist Psychology, which found that work serves as an important source of meaning in everyday life.
A lovely piece on purpose and how a ‘job’ feeds into it,
Love the optimistic twist. Made me smile :)
Beautifully written, beautifully illustrated - so pertinent!