The AI Choice. Grab it, or Ignore it? The Consequences are Considerable.
It’s a choice! Embrace it and lets wrestle figuring it out. Ignore it and it may be too late. AI. Just over a decade ago, I had the rare privilege of being appointed an Artist in Residence at the Southbank Centre — leading Arts centre in the UK.
Innovatory storytelling fusing Art, Journalism, Entrepreneurilism and Tech has been my ubuntu. Why, How? have been constant questions.
- How was it that in the 1870s a new art form started by a small often impoverished group of Western artists would overturn the might of European realism painting and the arbiters of “good” art at the Academy De Baux?
- How did the Japanese method of production Kaizen take on the might of US manufacturing under Ford motor’s approach?
- How did African artistry contribute to global movements, often unknown?
- How did five of Hollywood’s top cinema directors, some, Oscar winners, contribute to the understanding of conflict and war through journalism and propaganda?
- And how have a small band of modern day journalists been able to adopt similar methods that make their films memorable?
In all of these there are adoptions of tools, new disruptions, and individuals with ideas coalescing overtime, or otherwise cognitively patterns are discerned around their work that they can be called a unit of sorts.
Economic prowess eventually creates a market place for businesses to thrive and exchange goods. A growing foot print creates a sense of belief for those waiting to join. Philosophies create the language and rights that allow for growth and adoption.
In all of these exists at first the loose coming together of thoughts, breaking away from the status quo. Then an envelop of wider thoughts develop and then something akin to a movement. That movement becomes a hydra.
AI in storytelling, tech, education is going to flatten the professional in their current form and elevate the individual. It’’s going to invent the wheel. The wheel does not exist. This month, Russell Group Universities in the UK e.g Cambridge, Oxford, Sheffield and Cardiff ( where I’m based) embraced AI
What is it? In Five years time they’ll be no need for programmers as we know what programming is at present.
AI’s presence as a tool et al can either be approached as cognitive as usual, or re-imagined through systems, design, computational and holistic thinking.
AI explosions in storytelling will be a boon for marginalised, Black and Brown people, just as the impressionists artists in the 1870s would break the mould, just as coming out of the war challenged by the lack of excesses Japan refigured how it could compete with the US.
In under a week, I’ll be presenting ideas to the Pan African Heritage Museum festival in Ghana. How can new ideas, yet-to be excavated histories, be represented in a world which is shifting? How does AI impact this and what does it mean for you and I? How does it remake an educational system some 200 years old?
As a Gedankenexperiment, imagine some living for over 2000 years, they would have witnessed shifts around the world in learning, governance, and commerce. The projections by Goldman Sachs that Nigeria will be the 5th biggest economy in 2075 then isn’t unusual. A market place re-aligns thinking in itself.
Key to becoming generative is movements. A movement of people that embrace and frame a way ahead. It’s a choice very much worth taking.
