How do you figure out when and how to use artificial intelligence?
A good starting point for me was to think of it like this:
AI is cheap labour.
Imagine you’ve got a large group of knowledge workers at your disposal. That’s essentially what the current AI tools are offering you.
So it’s not about technology. It’s about resource allocation.
When should I use AI?
Ask these questions:
- What would I like to outsource?
- Can AI do it?
- What would I outsource if money wasn’t a barrier?
The first question: What would you like to outsource?
If you’d be better off doing it yourself, do it yourself.
If you’d be better off if someone else did it for you, outsource it.
Choose to outsource the tasks that can be done faster and/or better by someone else. As long as it doesn’t harm your finances, reputation, skills development, happiness, or ethics.
The second question: Can AI do it?
Imagine you have a large, multidisciplinary group of remote working knowledge workers. If it involves thinking and the output is digital, they’d probably be able to do it for you.
For example, you could use them to
- collect and analyse data,
- write,
- design,
- solve problems,
- brainstorm,
- research, or
- have conversations on your behalf.
The third question: What would I do if money wasn’t a barrier?
AI isn’t just an extended workforce - it’s a very cheap extended workforce. This means you can do things you previously could not.
What new things would you hire people to do if you could justify the cost?
You can use this framing - AI is cheap labour - to think about it like you’d think about any hiring or outsourcing matter.