I think about this a lot and I think your argument makes sense. I find that I spend a lot of time using AI to turn structured data into unstructured data or vice versa. Or sometimes it’s multi-step: ingest large amounts of unstructured data, identify trends in said data, structure and quantify. I think so much of what we do is 1. Sizing things (markets, probabilities, customer segments etc.) and then 2. Deciding courses of action, which are usually uniquely qualitative moments “Therefore we will do X”. I also think that as glue jobs go away we will have a period where much human work will be intense decision making (identifying and authorizing courses of action) before the Wall E world where the machines even make consequential decisions for us. Because the current corporate structures have mostly “glue workers” and relatively few decision makers, this may usher in a hyper-competitive environment where we have more companies, with fewer workers per company, engaged in intense competition around making better decisions. Production, in all its forms (industrial, digital etc.), becomes even more commoditized and only the decision about WHAT to offer remains as the principal domain of human competition. Regulated industries protecting themselves via “government oversight” will come under intense political pressure to drop barriers to entry (and indeed this is already happening with the new admin about to come on the scene in the US and soon in the UK, Canada etc.).
I think about this a lot and I think your argument makes sense. I find that I spend a lot of time using AI to turn structured data into unstructured data or vice versa. Or sometimes it’s multi-step: ingest large amounts of unstructured data, identify trends in said data, structure and quantify. I think so much of what we do is 1. Sizing things (markets, probabilities, customer segments etc.) and then 2. Deciding courses of action, which are usually uniquely qualitative moments “Therefore we will do X”. I also think that as glue jobs go away we will have a period where much human work will be intense decision making (identifying and authorizing courses of action) before the Wall E world where the machines even make consequential decisions for us. Because the current corporate structures have mostly “glue workers” and relatively few decision makers, this may usher in a hyper-competitive environment where we have more companies, with fewer workers per company, engaged in intense competition around making better decisions. Production, in all its forms (industrial, digital etc.), becomes even more commoditized and only the decision about WHAT to offer remains as the principal domain of human competition. Regulated industries protecting themselves via “government oversight” will come under intense political pressure to drop barriers to entry (and indeed this is already happening with the new admin about to come on the scene in the US and soon in the UK, Canada etc.).
Super interesting thoughts, Simon. Thanks for sharing.