Issue 9: A bulletin for big ideas and better business.

OPINION / TECH

Are AI chatbots still delivering fast mediocrity?

💬Tom Goodwin

Sam Altman thinks that the current version of ChatGPT “kind of sucks”. Talking on the Lex Fridman Podcast last week, the OpenAI CEO was frank about the limitations of his chatbot. The company is now working on the fifth iteration of its flagship product, and some outlets are reporting that it could arrive as soon as the summer.

I don’t agree with everything that Altman says. For instance, his claim that 92% of Fortune 500 companies use OpenAI products seems implausible. Most businesses are smart enough to keep sensitive material at a safe distance from products that don’t give decent answers to questions about data. That aside, this stinging observation about ChatGPT-4 is easy to get behind. Altman is right: it does suck.

Large Language Middle

Are these products central to how the world’s most talented information workers get stuff done? No. ChatGPT and the programmes like it are best put to work on the less important tasks – like job ads, or product specification pages. The reason that Large Language Models (LLMs) are under achievers when it comes to the high-level tasks is their design. They are rooted in probability, not understanding. AI should really be shorthand what they render – “the average of the internet”, regurgitating likely combinations of things. It’s an instant snapshot of the unremarkable middle. This is a rather big problem since almost all of human progress comes from the edges or the outliers, not the mean.

This is a problem for anyone relying on an LLM for deep work. For instance, if you draw on one for help in putting together a white paper, you’re fed reams of groupthink. Use one to power your product innovation, the result is a banal edit of things that already exist. For a business plan, you’re better to outsource the thinking to a twelve-year-old. The material that comes back from AI assistants is plausible, sensible, and prosaic. It isn’t wrong – it’s just worthless.

The ‘supernatural’ quality of AI means the debate is divided into zealots and sceptics

While LLMs are distinctly mediocre when it comes to outsourcing our creativity, they are better at introducing counter-intuitive stimulus to projects. In architecture, an LLM would do a poor job of designing a building. But with the right prompts, it can serve as a generator for unorthodox and obscure ideas for designs. While human creativity is inhibited by things like self-consciousness, consensus-seeking and fear of ridicule, AI has none of these. The outcome is an astounding trigger for wildly creative leaps.

Delivering the remarkable

A preoccupation with LLMs overlooks a fundamental truth to do with creativity – it’s about delivering the remarkable. Here’s a quick thought experiment: think of a craft or a creative skill and stick the word ‘average’ before it. The average poem doesn’t make anyone famous. The average tennis player won’t turn pro. The average musician is a failure. An average singer wouldn’t cut it as entertainment in a bar in Benidorm. Averageness doesn’t even deliver average results. We only see wonderful results when we reach for something beyond the realm of the miraculous.

One of the risks of mass LLM adoption then is pervasive mediocrity. Information professionals will have the ability to produce instant and limitless amounts of adequate work. This in itself represents an opportunity. When there’s a profusion of ordinary the value of the extraordinary increases.

We’ve fallen in love with the idea that LLMs are a work of magic. There is a parallel to be drawn from superstition and our biases concerning those. For instance, people who don’t believe in horoscopes will deem any astrological predictions inaccurate. But others who view such forecasts as a genius premonition from some all-knowing god see truth when they read or hear them. The supernatural quality we’ve applied to AI is one of the reasons that the debate on it is divided into zealots and sceptics.

As for Altman, he has high hopes for the next version of ChatGPT. With each unveiling, the tool is becoming faster, and better at understanding prompts from its human users. But the technology is still a quantum leap from creative brilliance. Meanwhile, there’s a risk associated with mistaking its output for genius. Those who rely on it to prop up their creativity will put out sensible ideas that are good enough to fail slowly – and expensively. Falling foul of that would definitely suck.

Tom Goodwin is author of Digital Darwinism: Survival of the Fittest in the Age of Business Disruption, and co-founder of transformation consultancy, All We Have Is Now.

📣 ALL STAFF 

We’re on a mission to unlock creativity.

The next cohort of The Business of Creativity course launches on the 29th April. It’s an eight-week masterclass that gives attendees all they need to reach their (limitless) potential.

Find out more here. 

THE AGENDA / PERFORMANCE

1.
Engines are revving ahead of two major car shows. Trade fair calendars are usually organised so competing events don’t overlap, but automotive enthusiasts will find themselves at a crossroads this week. Should they head to the New York International Auto Show or the Bangkok International Motor Show? As top brands pull up at both locations, hopefully there’s enough creative mileage to surprise attendees across continents.
29 March – 8 April (NYIAS), 27 March – 7 April (BIMS)

2.
Relations between South Korea and China can be terse, but things have been more harmonious lately thanks to the efforts of the former country’s president Yoon Suk-yeol. But could celebrity panda Fu Bao have had a paw in it too? This week the beloved bear – which was loaned to Seoul as part of Beijing’s long-running “panda diplomacy” initiative – will journey to Sichuan. Like brand campaigns, diplomatic charm offensives are often more effective with animals.
1st April

3.
Heading to see a play is an obvious way to mark World Theatre Day. But aside from watching the curtain rise, there’s more that this occasion can do to inspire creativity. Acting skills are transferrable to company presentations, and drama workshops have been shown to foster trust, collaboration and creativity in teams. In business, all the world’s a stage.
27th March

4.
The 61st Merrie Monarch festival – the world’s foremost and prestigious hula competition – is shimmying into Hawaii this week; the event is about honouring local traditions just as much as it is a chance to exhibit how complex an art form this is: some hula dancers dedicate their entire life to mastering the discipline. No matter how joyous the result, all creative endeavours require sacrifice and commitment.
31st March – 6th April

Roaming charges: Xiaomi’s Elektro-Limousine SU7
Contributor: Bildagentur-online/Schoening / Alamy Stock Photo

CHINA / MOBILITY

Driving diversification 

It seems that smartphone maker Xiaomi has been thinking more literally about what it means to make a ‘mobile device’. This week it’s launching its first electric vehicle, the SU7. Some companies have found immense success by performing a sudden hand-break turn on their specialisms (Nokia started life as a paper mill in Finland), but this is a gamble for the phone giant. China may be the world’s biggest EV market, but it’s also among the most competitive. Xiaomi has put aside $10bn to make it work, with a further ambition to manoeuvre itself into the world’s top five carmakers. The financial markets seem to have taken well to the news, but does the four-door sedan have what it takes? Car design consultant Guy Bird thinks that we should wait and see.

“What’s interesting is that Apple very recently ditched its own car programme, something that was a badly kept secret for possibly a decade; Dyson did the same: it said it was going to do a car, then gave up. So it is a gamble, because cars are complicated things: from the point of view of product design, they are an amalgam of different disciplines,” explains Bird. “On the plus side for Xiaomi, in EVs the predominant aspect is often software and user experience, which is where they could win. In its exteriors, the SU7 is not unattractive but it looks generic – it’s not blazing a trail design-wise.” Having the courage to launch into a new, radically different endeavour can pay off – but creative leaps of faith shouldn’t compromise one’s original strengths.

Contributor: Clo’e Floirat

CREATIVITY HACK

Laugh it up

“Ha-ha!” can rapidly turn into an “Ah-ha!” according to studies on the links between humour and creativity. When your meetings descend into hysterical laughter it isn’t (always) a worrying sign.

EUROPE / CITIES

Lofty ideas

The ski season in the Alps is almost over. With the closing of some runs, there’s the feeling that high altitude communities need another way to sustain themselves as climate change diminishes the number of snow days each year. In France, the resorts of L’Alpe-d’Huez, Le Grand-Bornand and Aussois recently saw a series of tourism-related developments rejected by their administrative courts: hotels, tourist residences and a chairlift were halted because of environmental reasons – and questions over whether hospitality projects are really what these places need. From Switzerland to Italy, mountain towns are realising creativity is often the best answer. Beyond organising festivals and events (the likes of Nomad in St Moritz, or I Suoni delle Dolomiti in Trentino), they’d do well to think about what might entice creatives to stay, from subsidised studio spaces to residencies programmes: artists would have much to gain in both headspace and inspiration by choosing an Alpine perch. There’s something about being at high-altitude that always encourages elevated thinking: just the kind of ambition that’s needed to make sure these towns reach the peak of their potential.

No snow, no show.
Contributor: dpa picture alliance / Alamy Stock Photo

ITALY / DESIGN

Minimalist masters 

Naoto Fukasawa at Milan Design Week 2023
Contributor: Sipa US / Alamy Stock Photo

Simplicity is far from simple. A new exhibition in Milan is exploring this fact in relation to Japanese design. Origins of Simplicity: 20 Visions of Japanese Design, at ADI Design Museum brings together over 150 works by designers from Naoto Fukasawa to Kengo Kuma and Issey Miyake – offering an insight into the true meaning of minimalism.

“In Japan, simplicity is linked to the idea that the sacred can be found everywhere, and leads to an appreciation of nature,” says curator Rossella Menegazzo. “And of the poverty of materials – which is achieved by a process of subtraction, of closeness to a material’s rawness and essence. But it’s also linked to zen philosophy, where emptiness is richness, because it represents the whole.”

Indeed, creating something truly essential and necessary is one of the hardest things to do: proof of the fact that sometimes, creativity isn’t just about ebullient brainstorming and voracious inspiration-seeking. It can come from paring down too. As Milan gears up for the joyful but overwhelming chaos of Salone del Mobile, visitors might find it useful (or a relief) to remember that great ideas are sometimes born by taking a step back.

Not only, or only?
Contributor: Barry King / Alamy Stock Photo

US / MEDIA

Quality, not quantity

At the height of the so-called streaming wars, entertainment platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video were battling for attention by commissioning as many new series as they could. The strategy? Feed audiences’ voracious (and seemingly inexhaustible) appetite for new TV. The approach may not have paid off. Data from Luminate, relayed by Variety, shows that in 2022 – when almost 1,000 new original series were launched – people spent more than 80 per cent of their viewing hours watching just 20 top series. Rather than diluting their quality (or blowing all their budgets) on heaps of titles, the platforms would have gotten more bang for their buck by focusing on confident, top-of-the-range series. Anybody who’s ever experienced decision paralysis on an evening wasted scrolling through Netflix will know this: efforts are best focused on doing a few things well, than many things terribly.