Category: AI

  • The Only Living Boy, a Microfiction

    What happens when real and virtual actors join forces in a new production of Shakespeare’s “Othello” on Broadway? As regular readers already know, I’ve been experimenting with microfictions, short SF stories (1,000 words or less) that help me explore and illustrate aspects of how our lives might evolve within digital transformation. Here, then, is another microfiction. Next…

  • Truth in a Filtered World

    We already live in a polarized society, so what happens when technology makes our filters even stronger? Image created with ChatGPT4. Last time, I shared a microfiction (1,000 words or less), a short science fiction story called “Filtered,” about a man, Phil, who found his wife Cynthia’s pet name for him so irritating that he…

  • Filtered, a Microfiction

    If you never had to deal with your partner’s annoying verbal tics because your AI could just edit them out, would you do it? Image created with ChatGPT. Hearing his wife Cynthia say the word “Sweetie” tightened the corners of Phil’s mouth into a sour grimace. He hated it, and it was Cynthia’s chief way…

  • Bubbles

    What happens when economic incentives coax people to choose a single digital ecosystem?  I’m trying something experimental this issue: a microfiction, short Sci Fi story (under 1,000 words) to illustrate something about how our lives might evolve within digital transformation. Please take a look and let me know what you think. (FYI: the “bubbles” of…

  • What Will an AI Hardware Device Look Like?

    Sam Altman, Jony Ive, and Masayoshi Son have announced a new “iPhone of Artificial Intelligence,” but what will such a device actually look like? Late in September, breathless stories hit about a new “iPhone of Artificial Intelligence” hardware device collaboration among Sam Altman (OpenAI’s CEO), Sir Jony Ive (the guy who designed the iPhone), and…

  • AI and the Productivity Lie

    Think twice about the pervasive idea that Generative AI is going to make you more productive. A look back on how email transformed our lives gives a hint about what’s coming with Gen AI. A notion that pops up in many conversations about the benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI)—particularly Generative AI (Gen AI)—is that this…

  • Amazon, AI, and Ads on Prime Video

    The trillion dollar ecommerce giant is adding ads to its Prime Video streaming service because everybody else is, but the secret story is about Amazon’s growing AI capabilities.  On September 22, Amazon announced that it would follow Netflix, Max, and Disney+ and start running ads on Amazon Prime Video. Ad averse Prime subscribers can cough…

  • The Hollywood Strikes, AI, Strategy, & Overfocusing

    The organization on the other side of the negotiating table from the striking writers and actors is the AMPTP, but how can one organization represent studios with such divergent interests? The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) is a mysterious Hollywood trade association. Its website contains no list of member organizations: just some technical documents,…

  • Digital Transformation: Three Stories

    The ingredients for Digital Transformation are institutional pain, inflection points, and tools lying around, but you also have to get the people part right. Usually, when we talk about Digital Transformation, we focus on the physical: paper and ink newspapers dissolve and go online; albums become cassettes then CDs then MP3s then streams; physical books…

  • AI, SCOTUS, and Affirmative Action

    Colliding Trends: as the Supreme Court changed college admissions, Chief Justice Roberts argued that personal essays will be more important, but are applicants learning to write in the age of ChatGPT? When I give sharpest-edge trend keynotes, I often use the phrase “colliding trends” to describe how I approach peering into the future. As a…