There is an idea from Andrew Ng that I haven't been able to get out of my head: artificial intelligence does not
\nIt is a product that is purchased, it is a resource. Like electricity.<\/p>\n
It is worth stopping there, because even the verb changes.<\/p>\n
No one ever bought electricity. No one invested in electricity either. What one does with the
\nelectricity means making it available: it brings it into the house, brings it into the workshop, and from that day on, it's there.
\nThe appliances come later. The carpenter bought a light bulb so he could work two hours more
\nwhen it had already grown dark. Later he bought a saw, to cut in a little while what previously
\nIt took him half an afternoon. What he sold were chairs. Electricity only allowed him to make
\nMore.<\/p>\n
Your business is chairs.<\/p>\n
And notice that this still happens today in your office, without you even thinking about it. The only thing you need is
\nLet there be light. From then on, every appliance decides what to do with it: the fridge cools, the
\nair conditioning cools differently, the printer prints. Neither asked for your permission nor did you
\nforced to understand what goes through the cable. You enabled the resource once, and ever since you
\nYou need the devices.<\/p>\n
And it's not that people don't want to. Everyone wants to be in on this. What they ask me is All three are the same question, and all three take for granted that there is something on a shelf waiting for And the answer to when it is uncomfortable but simple: it had to be enabled last year, it is possible Now, enabling it in a company is not the same as enabling it on your phone, and that's where And there is something that took me a while to understand: opening that valve is precisely what teaches you to What is true is that the day you want an agent to take a job off your hands\u2014from Because one thing is a task and another thing is a job. \u00abAnswer me these five questions\u00bb<\/em> is An agent is given jobs.<\/p>\n And naming a job accurately costs quite a bit more than it seems. Who does it today. What You don't have it answered because you never needed to. The person who does that job in your That is where the real investment is: in knowing how to say, in words, what you want to happen. If So what I'm proposing has two parts, and neither is technical. The first: And then go find an agent who can do it, no matter whose it is.<\/p>\n Because you are not investing in a new technology. You are enabling a new way of And the mistake is not choosing the wrong job \u2014 that fixes itself, you choose another one and move on. The mistake of And you, what job would you give him?<\/p>\n Daniel \u2014 your trusted human.<\/em><\/p>\n If you were left wanting to see what that looks like in action, here is the door:<\/em><\/p>\n
\n\u00abhow do I get in?\u00bb<\/em>, \u00abWhat should I buy?\u00bb<\/em>, \u00abWhat should I invest in?\u00bb<\/em>.<\/p>\n
\nIt's as if at the time someone had asked what to buy to have electricity.
\nThere was nothing to buy. It had to be prepared, and then the appliances would come.<\/p>\n
\nenable next week, and from then on it stays.<\/p>\n
\nthe industry is agreeing: form is agents. That's where everything moved
\nthe world at almost the same time. They are still being built. I've been doing it for a good while
\nbuilding them, so I know why sometimes they promise quite a bit more than they deliver: between one
\nthere is a much greater distance from a showy demonstration to something that can survive any given Tuesday
\nwhat it seems. But they work now, and they work today.<\/p>\n
\nSee. The carpenter didn't design the two extra hours before having light; it was the light that gave them to him.
\nIt showed. The same thing happens with this. You start to see what can be built with a little bit of AI.
\nonly after having it turned on. But really turned on: in something small and at the same time everyday,
\nwithin a process that you actually care about. If you put it to work on something you only touch once in a
\nwhen you aren't going to use it enough for it to teach you anything. Nobody arrives with the list
\ndone, and waiting to have it is the surest way to never begin.<\/p>\n
\ntruth, not demonstration\u2014 you're going to have to know how to tell which is which. And that's where technology doesn't help.<\/p>\n
\na task: you ask for it, they deliver it, it's over. \u00abTake care of serving the customers who
\nthey write on WhatsApp on Saturdays\u00bb<\/em> It is a job: it has an owner, it has a before and after, and
\nCan someone tell me if it was done well?.<\/p>\n
\ninput: a message, an email, the photo of a handwritten list. What comes out: a quote, a
\norder loaded, a timely response. And the one almost no one has answered \u2014 what does it mean,
\nexactly, that that job was well done.<\/p>\n
\nbusiness knows it, it learned it over the years, and with that it was enough. The day you want that
\nwork is done by an agent, that clarity is no longer optional.<\/p>\n
\nIf you skip it, whatever you bring after that is going to fail, no matter whose it is or how good it is.<\/p>\n
\nenable. Turn on the faucet and put it to work on something small but everyday \u2014 one of those
\nprocesses that if they stop, you notice. The second: while you use it, look at your operation and choose one
\njob. Only one \u2014 the one
\ncosting you the most, or taking away the most nights. Write it on a napkin: who
\nwhat it makes, what goes in, what comes out, how you know it turned out well.<\/p>\n
\nwork.<\/p>\n
\ntruth is the other one, the one that is not seen: to conclude that AI is not for you, or that it is not for your
\nbusiness. That's like keeping candles in the age of electricity. With a calculator in the era of
\nExcel. With fax in the WhatsApp era.<\/p>\n
\n