It’s a Revolution Baby! (An AI Revolution)

It’s a Revolution Baby! (An AI Revolution)

The greatest rock band of all time once sang, “You say you want a revolution, well, you know.  We all wanna change the world.  You tell me that it’s evolution, well, you know we all wanna change the world.”  Oh, for those living in a cave, that band is The Beatles.  Well, my friends, we are living in a revolution, and it is about time you got on board. 

Let us review what got us to the here and now.  You see, we had the Industrial Revolution.  This is where the steam engine was created and was used to pump water from coal mines.  We also had the Scientific Revolution, where we went from the Greek view of nature as science to a more mathematical, physics, etc type of science.  Next up, the commercial revolution, where trade and banking across Europe expanded, really laying the groundwork for today’s capitalism.  Finally, and most recently, we had a digital revolution.  This is where we moved from an analog world to a digital computer-based world.

AI Revolution

I share these to lay the groundwork for where that leaves us today, amidst a new revolution, the AI or Artificial Intelligence revolution (literally AI just finished this sentence for me).  Here is what we know about revolutions, and then I’ll leave you with my call to action. 

Revolutions are exciting and scary at the same time.  There are those who fight a revolution and usually get left behind, and those who embrace a revolution and generally flourish.  Yes, it is scary to think that cars will replace horses if you own a stable of cars, or that machines will replace people if you are a person.  All revolutions have built-in angst of the unknown and fear of being left behind, or even sometimes anger at the newest technology.  I grew up in the technological revolution and saw firsthand the power of personal computers and smartphones.  Heck, I still remember playing Oregon Trail in grade school on a floppy disc, thinking this stuff was cool.  Even some of our employees can’t remember a life where music was on tapes. 

That said, I’ve seen the future and quite frankly, the future is here and its name is AI (not Allen Iverson, who will always be AI in my book).  AI has already begun to change the world, and the power of this thing is inconceivable to say the least.  There certainly are fads out there (I swear, crypto is one still), and then there are revolutions.  AI firmly falls into the latter.  I tell you this not to scare you, but to awaken you to what lies ahead. 

Shift Forward

What lies ahead is a world shift, and you can get on the train or be left behind in the past.  I firmly and genuinely believe that to the core of who I am.  This thing is going to change the way we do almost anything.  It can take things that normally take days or weeks to accomplish and reduce them to minutes.  Is it perfect?  No.  Is it pretty freaking good?  Yup.  Will it get better? 1,000%! 

Not only all of that, but this thing is evolving at the speed of light.  The advancements are staggering, and if you want to stay relevant and a leader in your field, you’d better find a way to embrace this revolutionary wave.  I don’t want to get into all the nitty-gritty details or educate on all the use cases for AI.  Rather, today is a call to action to wake up and start realizing this thing is here to stay.

What to do?

Here is what I am recommending to anyone and everyone who will listen.  Start getting familiar with the technology.  Read a book, a blog (hehe), and definitely download one of the more prominent LLMs (Large Language Models) like ChatGPT.  From there, do what I’ve been doing and simply start tinkering around.  No way to understand the power of this thing more than rolling up your sleeves and getting a sense of its power.  First, you’ll use it like Google, which is like asking Michael Jordan for pickleball lessons.  Then you will start to unlock its true power.  Ask it to do some crazy stuff like plan your next vacation and watch in marvel.  This is still beginner stuff, but it will get you on the proverbial horse.

Consider this your official notice that AI is here to stay, and as The Beatles said, “Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright?”

As always, stay wealthy, healthy, and happy.