Antonym: The Complexity Rex Edition
What does an AI that makes graphic novels tells us about the future of work?
“What is the workflow of the future? I think we've only just barely scratched the surface of that.” – Demis Hassibis, CEO of GoogleDeepmind (NYT Hard Fork podcast)
That question from Mr Hassibis occupies most of my working life and thoughts at the moment.
The more we work with generative AI tools, the stranger and more exciting the possibilities become. What we are finding wonderful, weird and sometimes very unsettling. Things that have felt like immutable facts of work-life – meetings, documents, departments – are about to change profoundly.
One of the most amazing things about the arrival of generative AI in our lives is that the science is moving at pace even as we try to figure out how to use tools like ChatGPT. In MIT Technology Review, ****Melissa Heikkilä reports:
“many people in [AI research] compare it to physics at the beginning of the 20th century, when Einstein came up with the theory of relativity”.
A revolution is when the world turns upside down. You can feel it beginning to tip, can’t you?
Here’s an example…
Lore Machine
Lore Machine is a new generative AI app that helps make whole graphic novels and storyboards from text-based stories.
While it is relatively simple to make an image using Gen AI tools like DALL-E 3 (available in ChatGPT Plus) and Midjourney, getting characters and locations to be consistent across a series of images is hard to do. Lore Machine overcomes these problems and makes turning a story into pictures easy.
MIT Technology review said:
[Lore Machines is] one of a new wave of user-friendly tools that hide the stunning power of generative models behind a one-click web interface. “It’s a lot of work to stay current with new AI tools, and the interface and workflow for each tool is different,” says Ben Palmer, CEO of the New Computer Corporation, a content creation firm. “Using a mega-tool with one consistent UI is very compelling. I feel like this is where the industry will land.”
Lore Machine’s newsletter talks about
We’ve built 8 exciting new art styles from the ground up. You can view them here. An example: “1987 renders your stories in reassuringly retro late-80s cinematography, replete with rich grain, soft focus and harmonious coloration.”
Like this:
From the 1980s on, a musician who wanted to create a complex sonic world but couldn’t afford an orchestra could use a synthesiser. Now a writer who can’t find an illustrator can use Lore Machine. The creative possibilities of the form are put into more hands.
What other tools like this will come next? As people try to use the first waves of generative AI tools to achieve their visions and run into barriers, the innovations will follow. This is how an explosion of creativity and innovation will begin.
Complexity tamed
It’s natural to feel bewildered by the pace of change. Wary, and a little afraid. But curiosity and critical engagement are more useful responses than denial or anger.
Complexity scientist George Rzevski says in The Future Is Digital:
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest tool for resolving issues created by the most recent surge in complexity. The corollary is: those who delay or ignore AI will be overwhelmed by complexity. […] changes are always resisted, and even denied, by those who enjoyed significant benefits under the disappearing order, but the process is unstoppable.
Rzevski’s theory is that technology and society evolve intertwined with one another. Society creates technology to solve a problem, but the technology creates complexity (more information, bigger cities, more connections). The complexity creates problems for society which then creates more technology to manage it, but which also creates further complexity. One’s instinct might be to yell “stop”, but it won’t have any effect. It’s like disagreeing with evolution – it’s a process and it doesn’t care.
In Kara Swisher’s memoir Burn Book she quotes Disney CEO Bob Iger who has come to the same conclusion:
You have no real ability to ward [disruption] off or to avoid it,” Iger said. “Except by embracing it in some form and using it for the good, or your own good. And so, I just really believe that when it comes to changes that technology is bringing in our businesses, or in storytelling, for instance, bring it in and use it to your advantage. It’s that simple.
The everthing-everywhere-all-at-once nature of the current phase of technological disruption means that these insights apply at the individual, organisational and societal levels. You see it in the big debates about policy toward AI, whether it will be a problem solver or a net-negative to our complex challenges such as geopolitical instability, the climate emergency and misinformation.
You also see it when you sit down at a desk and try to decide how to prioritise the seemingly impossible amount of things that need to be done today. When you pick one of those tasks and try to remember and gather all the information scattered across documents, emails, instant messages and your notes about what need to be done and the best way to do it.
On Friday morning I spent the day’s first hour marshalling information to prepare to write a presentation and, it being the end of the week, I felt slightly exhausted already before the actual work began. Sound familiar? I suspect I’m not alone.
Then I recalled the work I’d been doing that week, in fact the very work I was about to write a presentation about: using Gen AI tools to organise and speed up workflow. Five minutes later I had put all of my material into a secure, custom chatbot and described the work I needed to do.
Ten minutes later I was in flow and the work followed smoothly. It felt wonderful. Complexity tamed, order restored. Although for how long? Damn you Rzevski!
Two VERY useful things
Dr Lilah Mollicj and Dr Ethan Mollick’s very useful collection of things. A generous library of prompts and resources for anyone learning or teaching about generative AI.
The Civic AI Observatory: A brilliant newsletter that will be of use to anyone interested in applying generative AI tools at work. The project is a collaboration between Newspeak House and NESTA, a British foundation that operates as a charity supporting innovation. The link is to a specific article, then follow the links to find out more.
This week I’ve been reading…
Burn Book, by Kara Swisher.
Kara Swisher is “both the most admired and most feared reporter in Silicon Valley”. Her memoir is a treat for anyone who has worked in or alongside the digital revolution that began in the 1990s.
I should have been a spy. Or even an admiral. Instead—since the skills required are quite similar, including charm, curiosity, tactical and strategic thinking—I became a journalist. Still, I balked at that label and jokingly agreed with the observation that my chosen profession was “the last refuge of the vaguely talented.” Over the years, I came to prefer “working reporter,” which felt less smarmy.
Actually, apart from some juicy anecdotes, the most thrilling part of the book is toward the end where she gives a glimpse of some of the expert reporter’s tradecraft. For instance on leaks:
When it comes to scoops, you’d be surprised who’s leaking—a secret most journalists will never tell. That’s because it’s nearly everyone. My sources ranged from student interns and low-level workers all the way to, most of all, CEOs. Sometimes outsiders like waiters and drivers and others who worked in these worlds weighed in.
The Future is Digital, by George Rzevski.
A book for non-scientists, but definitely not pop-sci, this concise, precisely and carefully written book is about the digital transformation of the world. Rzevski is a systems thinker and complexity scientist of high standing, and starts with a mission to explain why complexity is the natural - “unstoppable” – outcome of a society’s evolution alongside technology.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest tool for resolving issues created by the most recent surge in complexity. The corollary is: those who delay or ignore AI will be overwhelmed by complexity.
Convenience Store Woman, by Sayaka Murata (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori).
I finished Earthlings by Sayaka Murata on my Kindle and immediately a window popped up on my device asking me to rate it from one to five stars. My mind was so scattered by the shock of the ending of that brilliant book that I dismissed the window and sat bewildered for a few moments. Then, rather than submitting a review like a dutiful consumer, I started reading her previous book, the feted Convenience Store Woman.
Murata’s a beautiful writer – transported into English by Ginny Tapley Takemori – and shows the world through the eyes of an autistic woman who finds comfort in the routine of working in a 24/7 convenience store. It’s a short book, but all-enveloping while you’re with it. I think I’ll be reading both of these books again soon. I want the paper copies for next time. I did give both 5 stars in the end, of course.
This line is typical of the book’s style. It reads like a first line, but actually belongs exactly where it was placed, a few pages into the book:
The time before I was reborn as a convenience store worker is somewhat unclear in my memory. I was born into a normal family and lovingly brought up in a normal suburban residential area. But everyone thought I was a rather strange child.
That’s all for this week
Thank you for reading!
Antony