The only AI question anyone is asking
Artificial Intelligence... What is it?
The results of this year’s Global Sentiment Survey (GSS) are in and there’s no doubt what L&D pros are talking about at conferences, on LinkedIn and in the pub: The Metaverse! Wait, no… it’s Artificial Intelligence.
And by a staggering margin: AI didn’t just top the ranking across every region and work group, it also took 21.5% of the overall vote share.
It seems that no matter where you turn, someone is talking about AI. And the thing they’re most often saying is: ‘What is it?’
In case you’ve missed it, the GSS is a global survey (of sentiment) run by Donald H Taylor every year since 2014. It asks one main question: ‘What will be hot in workplace L&D [this year]?’
Participants are a self-selecting sample of folks on social media, giving the survey a slight bias toward the tech-savvy. But this year’s sample included 3,270 people from 97 countries, which gives us a good insight into what the industry is talking about as a whole.
The ‘RomCom’ path of AI
To really understand the evolution of AI, we can look at its rank on the GSS since it was first added as an option in 2017:
Like the plot of literally every romantic comedy, there’s a surge in enthusiasm following the meet cute, followed by a difficult spell, before our heroes finally fall in love for good.
As Donald points out in his report:
‘Initially, votes for options tend to increase annually. The options are chosen, after all, because they seem likely to increase in popularity. Then their popularity declines as they either move to mainstream adoption (as with Mobile delivery) or their novelty fades, and respondents’ attention moves to other things, as happened with Curation.’
It isn’t that mobile learning doesn’t happen anymore, it’s just that it’s so normalized that nobody thinks about it as particularly novel or interesting.
What’s interesting about AI is the steep climb back up the ranks since ChatGPT launched in November 2022.
And by ‘steep’, I mean steep. To see just how dramatic this change is, we can look at vote share rather than rank:
AI doesn’t just return to the top of the rank: It skyrockets upwards.
And I believe it’s easy to see why, as this third chart shows:
I’m no statistical genius, but there’s a sharp upward trend immediately after the release of our much-celebrated Mind Tools L&D Podcast Christmas Special: Rockin’ Around the ChatGPT. Thanks once again to ChatGPT for joining us on the show and, if you’re reading this, to both of the people who listened.
AI graduates to the mainstream
So is this ‘happily ever after’ for humans and AI? Perhaps not.
Not only was AI the highest ranking option on the GSS, it was also the source of biggest concern, mentioned 489 times in response to the question: ‘What is your biggest L&D challenge in 2024?’
For context, the next highest occuring keyword, ‘business’, appeared 237 times.
I like to think of this as the ‘Graduate’ phase of the hype cycle: Having fled out of the church with a commitment to spend the rest of our lives with AI, we’re now left panicking about what exactly that means.
This is borne out in our own research here at Mind Tools.
Our Content team are in the middle of creating a suite of resources to help our users navigate the modern world of work, with a particular focus on hybrid working, remote working and, of course, AI.
To identify the most valuable resources for our users, we develop a shortlist based on a range of research methods, then ask clients to rank ideas in order of preference.
That exercise led us to develop resources on ‘Connecting remote employees to organizational purpose’, ‘Having meaningful conversations in a remote team’, and ‘Collaborating in a hybrid context’.
But what surprised me was the top-ranked answer in our AI shortlist: ‘What is Artificial Intelligence?’
As we enter our second full year with ChatGPT in our lives, and a variety of alternatives available, it’ll be exciting to see how L&D pros leverage these tools as this understanding matures.
And yet Donald has pointed out what I consider to be a rather tragic shift in his data. During the pandemic years, 2020-2021, votes for ‘collaborative/social learning’ and ‘coaching and mentoring’ rose.
They’ve now declined again, to be replaced by a renewed enthusiasm for the AI-powered concepts of ‘personalization’ and ‘learning analytics’.
Of course, as a learning designer I welcome this. But as a human, I worry that personalized learning also means more solitary learning.
Are we set on a path to wholly individualized learning experiences, where we’re drilled by our AI companions until we’ve become little more than machines? I hope not.
Looking for a more human-centric approach to AI adoption? The team here at Mind Tools can help you design programmes that blend self-paced e-learning with collaborative workshops and our new ‘AI Conversations’ coaching tool. Get in touch by emailing custom@mindtools.com or reply to this newsletter from your inbox.
🎧 On the podcast
If there’s one trend that’s remained constant throughout my decade in L&D, it’s the desire for a ‘seat at the table’. But how do we get there? How do we build credibility, tackle real issues, and demonstrate value to our business stakeholders?
In last week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Owen and I were joined by author, academic and L&D pro Dr Keith Keating to discuss his new book: The Trusted Learning Advisor.
Check out the episode below. 👇
You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify or the podcast page of our website. Want to share your thoughts? Get in touch @RossDickieMT, @RossGarnerMT or #MindToolsPodcast
📖 Deep dive
Remember when industrial revolutions used to come every hundred years? Ah, the good old days.
No sooner had we got used to the idea that automated production would replace physical labour than AI has come along to replace cognitive labour as well.
In February, a report from The Burning Glass Institute and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) laid out the impact of genarative AI on industries, companies, jobs and the economy.
The key trends predicted? A surge in productivity by early adopters of GenAI, a risk of overstaffing as supply outstrips demand, and then an increase in corporate profits as payroll costs ultimately decrease.
If hiring slows, the average age of the workforce could increase. And the benefits of increased productivity will be accrued by those who are already wealthy: investors and senior employees.
Young folks, meanwhile, will find themselves in demand for the kind of blue-collar jobs that used to be ripe for automation but which are harder to replace by GenAI.
The author’s suggestion:
‘In the coming years, GenAI will both drive massive boosts in productivity and necessitate layoffs. Begin planning ways to leverage GenAI’s productivity benefits and prepare for the disruptions to your workforce through a combination of upskilling investments to give workers the skills to remain relevant and reskilling programs to reposition workers in areas of more stable demand.’
I’m reminded of a theory shared by a former colleague that, in the future, the main role humans will play will be as consumers. See Wall-E for another example.
Thanks Brandon Carson for sharing this report on LinkedIn.
Levanon, G. (2024). ‘Generative Artificial Intelligence and the Workforce’. The Burning Glass Institute.
👹 Missing links
📹 Just when you thought you were (maybe) keeping up
Our friends at OpenAI have now demoed ‘Sora’, a tool for text-to-video media generation. On this site, they offer some truly incredible examples that could quickly replace stock media sites. And they discuss some of the actions they’re taking upfront to address safety concerns around misinformation, hateful content and bias. ‘You can have a video of whatever you can imagine’ seems like the kind of technology we can’t really be trusted with.
📺 Speaking of AI-generated video
Former prime minister of Pakistan Imran Khan campaigned from prison this year, with his team using an AI-generated version of his voice to enable him to speak to voters. It’s been more common in the last year to see reporting on ‘deep fakes’, as when fake audio of Sir Keir Starmer was released on the first day of the Labour party conference. The Imran Khan example emphasizes that technology is not inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but it is an enabler of behavior that we can make subjective calls about.
❄️ Now for something completely different
As a result of binging True Detective: Night Country, I’ve become obsessed with finding northern towns on Google Maps. And I do mean northern. Utqiagvik, for example, is a city on the tip of Alaska. From there, you can walk out to the ‘Northernmost Point of the United States’. Currently rated 4.2 on Google Reviews, one visitor describes it as ‘a little bit cold’.
👋 And finally…
My L&D Dispatch friend-and-colleague Ross Dickie this week adopted two cats, Pepe and Bailie, shown below already competing for the best seat in the house.
While it’s been nice to see the otherwise-mild-mannered ‘other Ross’ gush sweetly about the new additions to his family, I personally cannot wait for him to discover the other side of cat ownership.
My own cat, Sparrow, this week vomited into one of my trainers.
👍 Thanks!
Feeling a little bit sick about your own L&D workload this year? The Custom team here at Mind Tools can help make those problems go away.
If you’d like to speak to us, work with us, or make a suggestion, you can email custom@mindtools.com.
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