Month: May 2023

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Generative AI

Lightning across a digital eye of a typhoon

Typhoon warning! My nephew is a Lt. Commander in the US Navy currently stationed in Guam. He teaches and manages trauma and emergency care at the hospital. Last night, he was preparing his family for the typhoon that would be sweeping across the small Pacific island in just a few hours. They closed the storm shutters, stored their Jeep in the basement and ensure their backup power and pumps were working. My nephew drew the short straw at the hospital and will be managing the ER while the storm rolls through. I worried about the hospital being built for these type of events and he assured me that it was, but of course, he was quick to add that the generators were built by the lowest bidder.

There is another typhoon coming. Gazing out over the technology horizon we can see a storm forming. But this one seems to be more than heavy winds and rain. I’m talking about the recent astonishing developments in generative artificial intelligence (GAI). I’m increasingly convinced that we are sitting on the edge of another major tectonic shift that will radically reshape the landscape of our world. Anyone who has spent time exploring OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Dall-E, Google’s Bard, Microsoft’s Bing or Co-Pilot, Midjourney, or any of the hundreds of other generative AI tools out there, will immediately recognize the disruptive power that is beginning to emerge. It’s mind blowing. GAI’s capacity to review and create code, write narratives, empathetically listen and respond, generate poetry, transform art, teach and even persuade, seems to double every 48 hours. It even seems that our creation has modeled the creator so well that it even has the uncanny ability to hallucinate and confidently tell us lies. How very human.

I have never seen a technology grow this fast. I recall the internet in the late 1980’s and thinking it had the amazing potential as a communication platform. Little did I realize that it would also disrupt commerce, entertainment, finance, healthcare, manufacturing, education and logistics. It would create platforms for new businesses like the gig economy and provide whole new levels of automation and telemetry through IoT. But all of that took decades. Generative technology is announcing breakthrough improvements every week, sometimes every 48 hours. To be fair these large language models (LLMs) are all using decades old research in neural network (NN) technology. However, when you combine those NN with enhancements (e.g. newer transformers, diffusion algorithms), hardware (e.g. GPUs) and rich data sets (e.g. the internet) they unleash new capabilities we don’t even fully understand. The latest generations of the LLMs even appear to be doing some basic level reasoning, similar to how our own organic NNs help us solve problems.

Businesses are already starting to explore the use of this technology to increase productivity, improve quality and efficiency. Wendy’s recently announced that they are partnering with Google to use GAI to start taking food orders at their drive-throughs.1 Gannett, publisher of USA Today and other local papers, is using GAI to simplify routine tasks like cropping images and personalizing content.2 Pharmaceutical companies like Amgen are using GAI to design proteins for medicines.3 Autodesk is using GAI to design physical objects, optimizing design for reduced waste and material efficiency.4 Gartner identifies it as one of the most disruptive and rapidly evolving technologies they have ever seen.5 Goldman Sacks is predicting that GAI will drive a 7% increase in global GDP, translating to about $7 trillion!6

It’s time to prepare for the typhoon. I’m excited about the future! As a technologist, I know disruptions will come, challenging our thinking and changing how we work, live and play. I know it can also be terrifying. It can prompt fear, uncertainty and doubt. But now is the time to prepare! Don’t wait to be changed, be the change. Start exploring and learning. I have a feeling that this new technology will be a 10x amplifier for us. Let’s learn how we can use it, work with it and shape it to be the next technological propellent to fuel our journey to a greater tomorrow!

This blog text was 100% human generated but the image was created with OpenAI Dall-E2.

  1. Wendy’s testing AI chatbot that takes drive-thru orders. (2023, May 10). CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wendys-testing-ai-chatbot-drive-thru-orders/
  2. Publishers Tout Generative AI Opportunities to Save and Make Money Amid Rough Media Market. (2023, March 26). Digiday. https://digiday.com/media/publishers-tout-generative-ai-opportunities-to-save-and-make-money-amid-rough-media-market/
  3. Mock, M. (2022, June 7). Generative biology: Designing biologic medicines with greater speed and success. Amgen. https://www.amgen.com/stories/2022/06/generative-biology–designing-biologics-with-greater-speed-and-success
  4. Autodesk. (2022, May 17). What is generative design? Autodesk Redshift. https://redshift.autodesk.com/articles/what-is-generative-design
  5. Gartner, Inc. (2022, December 8). 5 impactful technologies from the Gartner emerging technologies and trends impact radar for 2022. https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/5-impactful-technologies-from-the-gartner-emerging-technologies-and-trends-impact-radar-for-2022
  6. Goldman Sachs (2023, May 12). Generative AI could raise global GDP by 7%. https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/generative-ai-could-raise-global-gdp-by-7-percent.html
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The Best Pottery

It was the first day of the pottery class. The instructor welcomed the students and began to orient them on the material. He announced that the final grade would be determined by one of two measures. For half the class, he said that their final grade would be determined by the “quality” of their pottery. Their goal was to work on a single high quality product. For the other half of the class, he said that their final grade would be determined by “quantity”. Their goal was the sheer amount of pottery produced. Fifty pounds of pots would be rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. The class began and the students began their work.

The last day of class finally came and a curious fact emerged. The works of highest quality were not produced by the group focused on quality. Instead, the highest quality works were all produced by the group graded for quantity! It seemed that the “quantity” group got busy producing piles of work and learning from their mistakes as they went along. In contrast, the “quality” group sat around theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little to show for their work than some theory of perfection and a lump of dead clay.[1]

The key to becoming a great artist, writer, musician, etc., is to keep creating! Keep drawing, keep writing, keep playing! Quality emerges from the quantity. It strikes me that the same thing applies to software and systems we run. When we focus purely on the quality, we actually miss the mark. The way to improve quality is to keep creating, testing and learning. In the software sense, we want to keep releasing our code as often and as fast as possible. By doing that, we build operational expertise, knowledge and automation. We develop fast feedback loops that nudge the digital clay into a better shape. We tune processes to provide faster feedback loops, remove toil through automation, and minimize human error and mistakes. We optimize for a high throughput of working products and reap the prize of high quality outcomes.

But does this hold true? In my career, I have seen this to be true time and time again. Areas where we remove friction and optimize for faster release cycles (even multiple times a day), with automated integration, testing and delivery, ultimately result in higher quality products. I see the same thing looking out to the industry. The highest performing teams optimize for highest flow. The prize of perfection comes by delivering and learning. In the book, “Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations,” Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim ran a multi-year research project looking at practices and capabilities of high-performing technology organizations. Their conclusion was that the highest performing organizations embraced the notion of continuous delivery, the ability to deliver changes frequently, reliably and with minimal manual effort.[2]

We ship! As technologist, software engineers and SREs, our teams help design, build and run the digital trains that deliver amazing products and experiences to our customers and fellow employees every single day. Our goal is to make these experiences shine! And, as the pottery class learned, it is quantity of our practice and continuous learning that makes them more perfect.

Keep shipping. Keep improving. Keep delivering!

References

  1. The pottery parable is a true story as captured by David Bayles and Ted Orland in their book, Art & Fear. There is a similar story about photography in James Clear’s book Atomic Habits.
  2. Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations by Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim also identifies other key traits of high performing organizations, including having loosely coupled architecture, embracing a learning culture of experimentation, adopting lean principles to optimize flow, and creating a high-trust and empowering environment.
  • Forsgren, N., Humble, J., & Kim, G. (2018). Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations. IT Revolution Press.
  • Bayles, D., & Orland, T. (1993). Art & Fear. The Image Continuum.
  • Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. Avery.
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A Seat of Opportunity

“You can’t plan to meet the people who will change your life. It just happens. Maybe it’s random, maybe its fate. Either way, you can’t plan for it. But you want to recognize it when it happens, and have the courage and clarity of mind to grab onto it.” – Steve Jobs

It was standing room only. The meeting hall was packed. Stanford Business School frequently invited industry experts to speak to their MBA students. On this particular occasion, the room was completely full. Students were still coming in only to discover there were no seats left. They started sitting in the aisles. One of the professors, concerned about the safety of the students and the fire marshal code, started telling the students in the aisles that they would need to leave. He made his way down the rows evicting the reluctant students from the lecture hall. A young lady, not wanting to be evicted, spotted a few empty seats in the front of the room. They were clearly reserved for the speaker and any dignitaries that would accompany them, but it was worth a shot. She quickly made her way up to the front and sat in one of those open chairs. Moments later, a young man made his way up at sat in the seat next to her. He noticed her and smiled.

The lecture was about to begin. After some introductory chatter, the man next to the young lady stood up to give the talk. She was shocked. She smiled at him as he spoke. Midway through his lecture he lost his train of thought as he stared at her in the front row. She had clearly taken his attention. He managed to keep going and completed his talk. Many of the students came up to speak with him after the lecture. She was there too. He hoped to have the chance to speak with her, but suddenly she was gone. Where did she go? He was afraid he would never see her again. He wrapped up his conversations and left too. To his surprise and delight, he ran in to her again in the parking lot. “Would you have dinner with me?” he asked boldly. She agreed and gave him her phone number. 

The young man needed to leave quickly. A group of important customers wanted to meet him for dinner. He was walking to his car when it hit him. “If this was the last day of my life, would I rather have dinner with the customers or her?” The answer was clear. He raced back, just as she was about to drive off. Catching his breath, he asked with a smile, “How about dinner tonight?” She smiled back, “Sure.” Eighteen months later, that visiting lecturer, Steve Jobs, and the brave young MBA student, Laurene Powell, would be married.

I love that story! I love how Laurene had the courage to sit up front and I love how Steve had the courage and clarity to turn around. Those bold choices and seemingly random encounters with other people can change our lives forever. You never know when it will happen, but be ready to grasp it when it does. Steve used the powerful filter, “If this was the last day of my life, would I…?” It’s a great question. It distills decisions down to their enduring essence. It provides a timeless perspective and gives courage to follow your heart.

We are in a time of rapid change. New opportunities will appear. Challenges will arise. Unplanned moments will roll out before us as the story of our life unfolds. But we have choices to make. Choose wisely. Be available. Be brave. The future is full of wonderful possibilities! Don’t miss them. Have the courage and clarity of mind to grab onto them when they happen. It may even come along and sit in the seat next to you. 

Story from: Make Something Wonderful - Steve Jobs in his own words by the Steve Jobs Archive.