Category: AI
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Why AI shifts bottlenecks rather than remove them
In 1793 Eli Whitney invented a machine that could separate cotton fibers from their sticky seeds. The ‘Cotton Gin’ (short for ‘Cotton Engine’) mechanised what was previously a hugely laborious and inefficient manual process and it transformed the textile industry almost overnight. Suddenly mass-scale cotton production became not only more possible, but vastly more profitable.…
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The Great Unbundling of Work
On 4 May 1948, the US Supreme Court ruled in a landmark antitrust case that would change the way that Hollywood studios worked forever. Until that point the studios had owned everything, from the production lots, through to the cinemas that the films played in. Actors, Directors and writers were tied in to long-term, exclusive…
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Technology, inflection points and cascading impacts
In the late 19th Century sharpshooter Annie Oakley was one of the most popular acts within Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Annie would demonstrate her skills performing tricks like shooting the flames off candles and her grand finale, shooting the end off a lit cigarette held in the mouth of a brave volunteer from the…
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AI and the OODA Loop
Most AI use today is open-loop. People prompt, get an output, use it, and move on, meaning that each interaction is consumed the moment it’s produced. Last week I wrote about AI as compounding capability in the context of agencies and operating models, but it’s a principle that has much broader application. Getting value from AI and…
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The New Agency Operating Model
I recently ran a morning session at the ICOM World Meeting in Porto on the new operating model for advertising agencies. ICOM is the global network for independent agencies and the room was full of agency founders and leaders from markets around the world. A big part of the session focused on a scenario modelling exercise where…
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Creating an AI Braintrust
Years ago, when I first read (Pixar co-founder) Ed Catmull’s brilliant book Creativity Inc, I remember really loving their ‘Braintrust’ idea. This is where a group of Pixar’s finest creative brains come together regularly to review outputs and provide candid, constructive feedback on films in development. Ed Catmull described at the time how the job of the…
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The AI Inevitability Trap
If there’s one phrase that best expresses the two-way nature of the relationship between humanity and technology it’s probably Father John Culkin’s quote (often attributed to Marshall McLuhan): ‘We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us’. Humans create the technology, but that technology later shapes human behaviour, culture, perceptions, norms, and even the physical…
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Why Every Company Needs an AI Philosophy
I’ve been thinking a lot this week about that MIT Sloan piece that I shared in FF686 on how ‘Philosophy Eats AI’. The piece argues that three branches of philosophy are already embedded in every AI deployment whether leaders recognise it or not: teleology (what should AI models achieve?), epistemology (what counts as knowledge?), and…
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Techniques for critical thinking in AI augmented strategy
The ever-greater need for critical thinking in the age of AI has been a consistent theme of mine in this Substack. Humans are so-called cognitive misers. It comes very naturally to us to make use of techniques that make things easier for us, and humans have long used technology to outsource mental effort (digital calendars,…
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Are we having the wrong conversation on AI and jobs?
Given all the hype you’d be forgiven for thinking that we’re on the cusp of an AI-driven apocalypse in the jobs market. But are we? Last year Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, described what was called at the time a ‘white-collar bloodbath’. Up to half of all entry-level white-collar jobs, he said, could be wiped out by…