Dear reader, can you carry out some “Find & Replace” in your head?
In the headlines below, find the word “calculators” and replace it with “AI”.
“Digital Calculators Threaten Traditional Math Skills!” – The New York Times, 1972
“Calculator Invasion: Will It Put Accountants Out of Work?” – The Wall Street Journal, 1975
“School Boards Divided: To Ban or Embrace Calculators in the Classroom?” – Los Angeles Times, 1978
“Human Error vs. Calculator Accuracy: Who Can You Trust?” – Chicago Tribune, 1980
“Are Hand-Held Calculators Dumbing Down the Next Generation?” – The Guardian, 1983
“Calculator Boom Fuels Concerns of Job Displacement in Accounting Sector” – Financial Times, 1987
“Calculators: A Blessing or a Curse for Small Businesses?” – Entrepreneur Magazine, 1990
Now they sound familiar, right?
History has only one function: to repeat itself.
While many things have been written about AI in the past few months, some significant developments have begun taking shape.
And I think it is important to cover their meaning for the knowledge worker like you and me.
Firefly update
Two months back, Adobe released its Firefly update to Photoshop.
See for yourself.
Soon, people without any real Photoshop skills, started floating around their edits.
See this one:
Now, this is similar to DALL E-2, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, or that type of model.
But what’s significant is, this:
Adobe, the world’s one of the most prominent software developer companies, added an AI feature to their highest-sold proprietary software: Photoshop.
The AI is to stay and provide value.
Adobe’s Photoshop is not some startup offshoot or novel product. It’s not an experiment. It is an established enterprise software, used by millions of knowledge workers across the globe. So, when it gets an AI upgrade, we have to reflect.
5 takeaways
1. Skill is no longer the lone, deciding factor
If there was any mathematics or law-related AI update, we wouldn’t be talking about it. Because it is not easy to relate to it. But this, Photoshop update is easy to access and relatable. We can see the changes in the demo video and understand what is going on.
Similar updates are coming for every software we use: Microsoft Office, Google Docs, Video editors, and PC OS.
Knowing how to operate software and mastering it used to be the only deciding factor until now.
Other factors are added, as discussed in point-2 to 5.
2. Getting out computer screens
If you looked closely at the demo video that I shared at the beginning, two interesting things happen.
The Photoshop user selects the area where the changes are needed. If the user doesn’t know where the yellow stripes should be added or the red arrow, using the AI-enabled software is useless.
Similar matter for any other AI-enabled software. It may help you write a good advertisement, but how do you know what theme, tone, and words to prompt in the software and choose the best draft?
We have to get out of our computer screens and get in touch with the real world. And observe. The better your touch with reality, the better your work in any given field.
3. Imagination is the de facto requirement
When I saw the Firefly update’s demo clip, I loved it how they added a red arrow in the alley. That’s imagination.
I see more and more parents robbing their children of their imagination. To make them more scientific and rational, what they miss is: people shape their reality in their fondest imagination and manifest them.
You have to let your imagination loose.
The widely successful text to image generator Midjourney’s prompt code to generate the images starts with “Imagine/”. That’s not a coincidence.
4. Intuitive understanding is more important than ever
Looking at something and grasping all the possibilities without any conscious processing, is highly important. This quality has guided humans until now.
Inculcating this understanding is no longer optional.
To produce remarkable work, the world will require value from our supercomputerish brains more than ever before.
5. Succinct articulation in English
The growth and evolution of the internet in this part of the world have created a heavy dependence on the English language.
If you are to play an effective role in your AI-enabled work, your chances are better if you hone your English language skills.
Because the models are based on English language material, the more specific service you want from the AI models, the more specific your English writing has to be.
The AI revolution is here and now it is consolidating its gains. Let’s wait and see how it changes our work.
NOW YOU.
What are your takeaways from Adobe’s Firefly update?
Hit Reply and tell me.
Reads of the week:
My past few days have been away from digital screens, hence only one recommendation for this week:
How To Think For Yourself: Paul talks about his ideas on independent-mindedness. What does it take to think without anyone’s influence? What drives that quality and how you too can inculcate it?
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