Digging in to the Opportunities of AI

Some think Terminator-style bots are coming for us.

At Skapa, we’re looking at AI as a powerful opportunity to help organizations grow,

In many ways, it feels like 20 years ago when “smart phones” were coming out and impact the way we live and work. It’s these times when I think about the quote that we tend to overestimate the rate of change in the short term and underestimate it in the long term.

Not surprisingly, I’ve been contacted by clients and partners about how we can help with AI and their ideas.

Given this, I decided to share my thoughts and Skapa’s experience with AI in periodic newsletters. I’d love to hear your feedback and would be happy to discuss any ideas or questions you might have.

AI Front and Center at ASU+GSV Summit

I attended the ASU+GSV EdTech Summit in San Diego in late April and AI was notably front and center in most every presentation. I found these four points particularly noteworthy:

• Some bigger organizations are using AI to monitor AI as a safeguard. Yes, AI is the gatekeeper of AI.
  
  
• AI is proving to be a great tool for educators to automate tasks like creating an Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) plan and to aid in important but repetitive tasks. Here’s an interesting YouTube video demonstrating how AI can assist a teacher using Playlab: https://r.skapatech.com/playlab-walkthrough
  
  
• AI is predicted to be a hugely transformative technology that will disrupt many industries and professions, including software engineering. While AI is seen as a quick way to test a proof of concept for a new product or tool, it’s unclear whether it will be able to scale as adoption grows to new business cases. It will likely be used early on by engineers to enhance their performance, not to replace them.
  
  
• AI is good at creating from existing knowledge but at present is not an inventor. Right now, AI is best used to increase productivity and serve as a co-pilot.

AI Offered a Viable Solution

Recently I was working to integrate two systems and decided to explore how AI might help. After analysis and much consideration, three approaches emerged. Then I decided to see how ChatGPT might solve the problem. I was pleasantly surprised that it produced a fourth solution—one I hadn’t considered.

ChatGPT actually prompted me to broaden my thinking beyond my own experiences. I wound up not using that fourth approach, but AI offered an expansion of my thinking and reinforced my belief in the positive power of this new technology. Like other technologies used in the right manner, AI can increase productivity and assist in our lives.