Article
Which Work Will AI Not Replace?
Seventy per cent. That is where the first AI output begins, even when you give it the full company context and the best examples from the past. We are talking about the kind of output that cannot be defined programmatically. It is more complex. Often it is creative work.
Seventy Per Cent Is Not Finished Work
On one repeated type of output I reached eighty per cent within a week. Every further percentage point is harder than the one before. The model has a reference template, it has a skill, it has positive examples. And it still overlooks something now and then, because of its capacity and the context it is able to take into account. Or it uses the template badly.
Seventy per cent on a single prompt is enough to make a person believe that one hundred per cent will come quickly. In some tasks that is a trap. This is why it matters which tasks we take on.
Let us return to the output and ask: why is it often so hard to reach even ninety-five per cent? There are three reasons behind it.
Either the AI does not have good enough context. It does not have the information.
Or it has the information but does not have the tools to do the work to one hundred per cent. Or it has the tools but cannot use them properly.
Or it does not have the tools to check whether the output is at ninety or at one hundred per cent. Or it has them but cannot use them properly for that check.
The result is the same. The owner of the company, or the founder, is not satisfied with it.
What the Owner Sees and the Machine Does Not
The owner has a specific idea of what a good product and good marketing look like. Often at a level of detail he has never written down anywhere. He knows how to work with the brand identity across products and marketing. He knows what good output looks like. He carries that idea in his head and he recognises it when he sees it.
He has essentially two options. To have someone in the company who gets these ideas of his into the AI. Or to do it himself.
Why a Recording of the Meeting Is Not Enough
The logical objection goes: let the AI learn it by itself, from emails and meetings. But from a recording the machine will not find out which version of the output the marketing team finally considered correct. That decision is a judgement that was made outside the record.
Someone simply has to sit at that computer. Without that it does not work, and for now it will not.
How Long It Really Takes
Giving company context to an AI is not a single upload of a document. It is days, weeks, sometimes months at the computer. It depends on how big the company is and how specifically it does things compared with the 'normal' the AI learnt from training data and from the internet. The more a company differs from that normal, the more work it is.
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Common questions on this article's topic
Which work will AI not replace?
Why can AI not finish the work to one hundred per cent?
How long does it take to teach AI the company context?
Will AI replace marketing and creative professions?
Who should supply the context to AI inside a company?
If you have any thoughts, questions, or feedback, feel free to drop me a message at mail@richardgolian.com.
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