A few thoughts on the UK Government’s AI announcement

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Most of the text in this post previously appeared on my LinkedIn feed. I thought it should have been here…

Sometimes, I read something on LinkedIn and repost or comment, before realising I’ve pretty much written an entire blog post. On my phone. Twice, because I navigated away and lost the first attempt. Maybe I should have put in here, but it probably gets seen by more people on LinkedIn. Still, I own this platform, so I’m putting it up for posterity.

The post in question was one from the BBC’s Technology Editor, Zoe Kleinman. Zoe had posted insights about the UK Prime Minister’s “bold and ambitious plans to support the UK’s AI sector”.

Zoe’s post and articles are well worth a read, but I wanted to add some more:

“[…] I can see why the UK wants to position itself as an innovative place for growth, without being (quite as) reliant on US tech behemoths, but most of us have yet to establish what we want to use AI for.

Sure, “AI” is the perceived answer to everything at the moment – and there are some very large companies with very deep pockets pouring billions into “AI” – but it’s an arms race. “Big tech” hasn’t worked out how to make money from its AI investments yet. The tech giants just want to make sure they have a big slice of that pie when we do finally get there.

Putting aside the significant environmental and social challenges presented by AI (as mentioned in Zoe’s post […]), “we” (our companies and our countries) haven’t got a solid business case. We just know we can’t afford to be left behind…

We’ve used some AI technologies in a variety forms for years (for example Machine Learning) – and the recent advances in generative AI (genAI) have democratised access to AI assistants and opened a huge opportunity. But genAI is just one type of AI, and we don’t fully understand the large language models that underpin it.

One thing that sticks in my mind is something I heard on a recent podcast, when Johannes Kleske commented something along the lines of “when it’s in the future, it’s AI. Once we have worked out what to do with it, it’s just software.”

More on the UK Prime Minister’s AI announcement

Artificial Intelligence: Plan to ‘unleash AI’ across UK revealed [BBC News]

Put the big rocks in first

Posted on By Mark Wilson

This post previously appeared on my LinkedIn feed. I thought it should have been here…

A few weeks ago, I heard Michelle Minnikin refer to “big rocks first” on the WB-40 Podcast. It rang a bell with me – an approach to prioritising activities – first the big rocks, then the pebbles, then the sand. First attributed to Stephen Covey, it’s based on the story of a professor demonstrating to his class that they need to focus on the important things first, in order of priority, and then fit the minutiae of life around them. I’ve linked a 2 minute video at the end of this post that tells the story.

It seems I’ve used the analogy a lot recently – firstly helping someone manage the things that are making them anxious; now it seems that I’ll be doing the same with my son, in terms of prioritising activities to prepare for his A-Levels; and it works in a business context too – in terms of setting goals to achieve strategic aims.

So, whether it’s helping with mental health, learning about time management, or simply determining the priorities to achieve success, think about your rocks, pebbles, and sand.

And for a slightly longer (and older) video, here’s a practical demonstration featuring Stephen Covey himself:

Generative AI is just a small part of the picture

Posted on By Mark Wilson

This post previously appeared on my LinkedIn feed. I thought it should have been here…

They say that, when all you have is a hammer, every problem that needs solving looks like a nail. Well, something like that anyway. Generative AI (GenAI) is getting a lot of airtime right now, but it’s not the answer to everything. Want a quick draft of some content? Sure, here it is – I’ve made up some words for you that sound like they could work. (That is literally how an LLM works.)

On the other hand, I spent yesterday afternoon grappling with Microsoft Copilot as it gave me lots of credible sounding information… with sources that just don’t exist, or don’t say the things it says they do. That’s quite frightening because many people will just believe the made-up stuff, repeat it and say “I got it from Copilot/ChatGPT/insert tool of choice”.

Anyway, artificial intelligence (AI) is more than just GenAI – and last night I watched this video from Eric Siegel. Once all the hype about GenAI has died down, maybe we’ll find some better uses for other AI technologies like predictive AI. One thing is for sure, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is not coming any time soon…