Category: AI
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Designing your agentic AI system
There’s obviously a lot of talk about Agentic AI right now but the reality that I’ve experienced most in teams is that many of the agents that have been built so far are simple, task focused, sequential automations. There’s nothing wrong with
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Cognitive Sovereignty
Cognitive outsourcing (the idea of letting AI do your thinking for you) is being discussed a lot right now. but the term ‘cognitive sovereignty’ is probably a better way to describe the risks involved in this practice because it captures the nuance
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How AI rewires how we think
‘Players now train to replicate AI’s moves as closely as they can rather than inventing their own, even when the machine’s thinking remains mysterious to them.’ This is a fascinating look at how AI is reshaping how the best Go players in
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Leading Human/AI Hybrid Teams
For most of human history, leadership has meant one thing – getting the best out of people. But what happens to leadership in an age where hybrid teams of humans and AI agents will increasingly be the norm? It’s a pretty big
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Organisational knowledge in the age of AI
I’m not a fan of trendy neologisms like ‘prompt engineering’. Marvin Minsky once described how ‘suitcase words’ (high-level and abstract terms) often contain a variety of different, sometimes jumbled meanings. And there’s a lot of suitcase words around AI right now. But
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The value of craft in the age of Agentic AI
Following the recent release of Claude’s latest model Scott White, Anthropic’s Head of Product for Enterprise, said that he thought we were moving into an era of ‘vibe working’. If vibe-coding was about describing the thing you’d like to build and letting AI write