I’m at SXSW this week and the event is simply magical. It is awesome to be with so many talented, brilliant, creative people. As you can imagine, AI is the topic du jour. For better or for worse, it sneaks its way into every conversation. Which brings me to my key take-away from the past few days in Austin: Generative AI is a skills amplifier, not a skills democratizer. Said differently, if you’re great at your job, proper use of a generative AI model will make you measurably more productive. If you suck at your job (or if you don’t know the subject you’re asking generative AI about), you’re still going suck. Let’s review.
When Talking About Generative AI, Democracy Is Bad
It’s easy to understand why people think GenAI is a skills democratizer. If you don’t know anything about building campfires, a quick prompt such as: “What’s the best way to build a campfire?” will get you a perfectly workable answer. This does, in some minimalistic way, democratize the skill of campfire-building. However, so would a quick Google search. To better illustrate the point, enter a prompt like, “What are the musical rules for creating a bebop arrangement?” You need a fair amount of musical education to understand the answer, let alone follow the instructions.
Too eclectic? Try this test with your personal skills. Take a subject you know well and use GenAI as a writing partner. Push it hard. Ask it to help you accomplish your task (or small portions of your task) and let it do its thing. Will it be brilliant? Only if you prompt the model brilliantly. Otherwise, it will just be a lot of words saying the same thing in long, random, tedious clauses that look like English, but are really just word salad. Either way, you (as a subject matter expert) will know how to evaluate the output.
A Distinction With a Difference
The idea of GenAI as a “skills democratizer” suggests that it can level the playing field by granting anyone the ability to perform tasks across various domains, irrespective of their background or training. This simply isn’t true. GenAI cannot replace the need for specialized knowledge or expertise. Without foundational knowledge, an individual’s ability to effectively direct or apply GenAI’s capabilities is severely limited. GenAI cannot, for instance, turn a novice into a medical expert capable of diagnosing illnesses or a beginner into an architect capable of designing safe buildings. What it can do is amplify a subject matter expert’s skills and make them measurably more productive.
GenAI is NOT the Only AI
It is important to draw a clear distinction between GenAI and the term “AI” (which is a catch-all phrase). As of this writing, GenAI models are highly sophisticated calculators. They are programmed to surface a contextual response based on the prompt you enter. They do not think. They do not reason (at least not the way people do). They are not sentient. They do not store data the way traditional databases do. They are not search engines (although some GenAI apps can search the web). That’s today.
There are AI platforms that combine many different types of AI models to accomplish goals (as opposed to individual tasks), some are called autonomous agents, some are just called AI. These systems are being innovated as you are reading this. Tomorrow, or the next day, or next week, or sometime soon, someone is going to introduce an AI that not only is a skills democratizer, but a skills replacer. I don’t know when that will be. It may never happen, it’s hard to say.
What can be said is that GenAI is not even close to ready to do your job for you. So, don’t approach it or think about it as anything more than it is – a nice way to amplify your subject matter expertise. Used correctly, it has the power to reward you with the greatest gift of all – extra time.
Author’s note: This is not a sponsored post. I am the author of this article and it expresses my own opinions. I am not, nor is my company, receiving compensation for it. This work was created with the assistance of various generative AI models.
ABOUT SHELLY PALMER
Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500 companies with technology, media and marketing. Named LinkedIn’s “Top Voice in Technology,” he covers tech and business for Good Day New York, is a regular commentator on CNN and writes a popular daily business blog. He's a bestselling author, and the creator of the popular, free online course, Generative AI for Execs. Follow @shellypalmer or visit shellypalmer.com.
