AI Is The New Google

The title is supposed to be a hot take and very straight forward. I've been in tech for over a decade and I've learned a lot. I also do a fair amount of people watching, people analysis, and I understand things from a different perspective than your average person. So let's talk about this.

Is this an attack on AI? Is it the end of the world as we know it? No. It's just an opinion based on my experience. LET'S GO!

Google was transformative for the world. Not sure they knew it at the time, but the internet used to be a place where there were a lot of search engines, but the way in which you could be found was very specific to what you used. Before that, you had to know what you were looking for and where to find it. Take a step back to before the internet, everything was physical or in someone else's brain. The ramp up was quite insane. By the late 2000's, Google was about the first thing everyone pulled when they opened any computer.

Let's fast forward to early 2010's, where cell phones became more than phones. Again, Google still the first thing, regardless of browser, was the thing that everyone, and likely still today that opens when they hit the browser. Unless you're looking for something on social media, it's Google.

Google did more though than just that. They used it to build a browser that overtook any other browser; Chrome. Not only a search engine, but the way that you use the engine is also Google if you use Chrome. Now we have Chromuim based browsers. Kind of crazy to think about. They also overtook the way that results showed up, offering adsense and introducing SEO (not sure if they introduced it, but it's their platform people are using). Obviously you pay for it, but you can legit be top of the first page of results. Then they bought YouTube, so not only web browsing, but video browsing is also owned by Google.

So why does it work? Well, it solves a fundamental problem and gives you more than you asked for; it gave you something to gain knowledge on very quickly, while also tempering those results to what is relevant. In fact, it did it so well that you use it for everything now. You need to fix your dryer? Google it. YouTube it. You want to figure out what Kangaroo's eat? Google it. You want to understand what the Hubble telescope found and how the scope actually works to take pictures in space? Google it. You are at work and have no clue how to complete a task? Google it. You are sick. Google it. You put on shoes. Google it. You have a thought... you guessed it; Google it.

It's become an essential part of our lives, and it did it so blatantly, yet so subtly. Technology has the tendency to do that. It's something new, and cool. People start to use it, abuse it, and then integrate it into everything, if not intentionally, then by just the sheer value of it keeps bringing you back. Sometimes it's convenience. I don't need to purchase or ask anyone anything, I have Google.

Don't think of AI like Jarvis from Iron Man... think of it more like a massive closet with a worker in it. So let's say, in your house, all the crap that you have in the house at some points ends up in that closet. Now you're cooking a meal, and you can't find the blender. In fact you can't even remember what it looks like. You also don't know how to use it. So you go to that closet, open the door, and ask the guy staring back at you "I need my blender and I need to know how to use it." That guy goes in there, grabs the blender and tells you all you need to know for what you're doing.

Here's the thing about that though... he didn't know that info because he's smart and knew what he was doing, no, in fact, he knew that info because when you put the blender in the closet, you told him what it was and how to use it. You also gave him the user manual. He then put it somewhere he knew exactly where to grab it from, because he put it there, or maybe you put it there, and told him where it was. He took note in case you needed it again.

AI is like this. It's a massive amount of just stuff... data if you will that exists around the web. Beyond the data, there's also a lot of... to not get too technical here, connections that AI is programmed to have it make decisions. When you ask it about your blender, it uses that data to predict and take educated guesses at what you're asking about, pulls down the data, and then makes a decision based on what you asked it, what you need to know.

Another example. Let's say your closet has 3 blenders, two in different shades of blue, one red, and each are different sizes; one is meant to make shakes, another is a normal blender, and one is massive and can hold like 6 gallons. You can't remember what you need, but you know what you need to do. You need to... let's say make chicken salad. So you need to finely cut up chicken, eggs, celery, etc. so you go to your closet (aka AI) and see what you need.

Your question - "I need to cut up chicken, eggs, and celery for chicken salad, how should I do it?"

Here's the beauty of AI. It says "cut up" which means you need something with blades. Then it says "chicken salad" and discovers that chicken salad requires fine cut stuff. It sees recipes, directions, and videos of people making chicken salad and sees that blenders are a common option. It then sees you have multiple options, so it assumes you are making a meal for a family, so you need the normal blender. So AI spits out "You need to use a blender to finely cut up these ingredients for chicken salad." Then it proceeds to give you instructions on how to use a blender, in what order you should shred things, best practices, and includes similar language to what it found searching the web.

It's quite incredible. So if I can use that for chicken salad, why can't I use it to code? Why can't I use it as a therapist? Why can't I use it to generate ideas? You can. And the world knows it too. It's coming into just about everything fast and hard... and hey. Even Google has an AI assistant when you use it. How many times in the past few months have you NOT read past the AI summary on the Google page after a search? Probably not much.

This is not only Google on steroids; it fundamentally takes what Google already did, and solves it's subsequent problem. AI doesn't just search things, it practically does the research for you. This will help us technologically advance very quickly around the world. Not only that, but it gives you that "extra" too. It can do pictures, generate ideas, make music, etc.

It's making life easier and then doing so much more. It's really cool, as I myself use it a lot. I use it quite a bit to get started and do things much faster. All the boring stuff, I no longer have to do. I can use AI and then just do what I need to do. All action based.

At first, I was a tad skeptical whether or not it was going to take off, but companies have positions for AI engineers, they are building departments, and so many future plans now have AI involved. It's here to stay and it's showing value to the public and businesses alike.

So businesses and corporations learned from Google. They likely didn't expect what Google had to offer the world and how it changed it. Now they do though, and this is a potential they can definitely see. They want on board now, fast and hard.

Corporate America ruins everything though. I am very vocal about this. It's all about greed, profit, and resources, never about the people. My biggest concern is that it will start accelerating the rat race we're already in. Heck, there's already AI built to apply for jobs. Businesses realize AI makes a lot of human tasks easy and less resource intensive. I can easily see corporations saying things like - "AI should make this easier, so we should change the expectations of the jobs." This will result in more KPI's, faster turn arounds, etc. - and the expectations will be set before they can actually deliver it... until we can catch up. They are currently doing this in another way; I’ve had at least 3 jobs where this was already happening with automation. They plan forward as if the automaton will appear and things will change by a certain date, and set expectations not on today, but on a non-existent future… at least yet.

Another part of AI is the leverage scammers can use. One thing AI does well is become personal. People use it as a therapist if that’s not proof enough. Voices, photos, emails, sites, will become more and more hard to see through.

AI will also change the competitive landscape everywhere. You either use AI, or beat AI, and AI is programmed to be fast and effective. With AI, you’re going to have to try a lot harder in most jobs to keep them, or leverage AI.

Finally, social disconnect. The more and more we no longer need to rely on each other as humans, the more we won’t. A lot of us already struggle with isolation (myself included) and AI will only make that worse. People are naming their AI bots, talking to them like friends, and talking to real people less and less. We really need the human connection. It's part of what makes us... us. Businesses would prefer not though, rather to abuse us for profit.

I'd like to second to reiterate my first point - because to be completely honest, it is what concerns me the most. Google basically took what would take 5 years of experience and a college degree, and made it a 5 minute task. It's great for up and comers to get in early, but those like myself have to adopt. It's much harder to abandon a lot of hard work and experience, and replace it with simplicity, only to one day devalue ourselves in the market. It's self-induced career death. We can make it, but it's still going to make things much harder; expectations will rise, numbers will rise, and inevitably our ability to keep up will lower and new generations will come in and take over.

It's happening fast.

If you don't want AI replacing your favorite types of art, then support your artists. It's more important than ever. If you have an artists who draws, send them some cash. Support their YouTube. If you have a musician you follow and love, buy their merch, sign up for their club, donate to their BandCamp. If you follow someone who does any type of content you frequent, Patrion or similar sites, throw some cash. If you don't the alternative is that AI will eventually make their careers so much less successful, they'll probably end up doing something different.

If you don't want to become a recluse, or replace your ability to network or anything with AI, then be social and encourage others to be social. Look, I am one of those guys who needs to touch grass. I am always on the computer, I am productive, and it's done nothing but make me miserable and human connection is something that does it. You need human support. Don't let AI do that for you... trust me, it may seem like it, but it's not.

If you work in tech, start adopting AI now. What will happen is you will start excelling at your job, and your job will likely become easier. What it does though, is future proof you though, because once AI is in everyone's playbook, you'll have already been there, using it, developing with it, and taking advantage of it.

If you work in corporate or a large company... beware. All your meetings are probably being recorded, transcribed, and summarized and analyzed by AI. They are watching, and they know what goes on. Especially if you work remote. Also, take advantage. Pay less attention in garbage meetings, use AI to get rid of your fluff. It's there, might as well. If you happen to be in leadership, then I hope you remember that you have humans who work for you. Not because they're fragile, make mistakes, or are difficult... but rather you can truly make a difference in so many lives by being human and not just treating folks like resources.

If you're just living your life bro... keep doing it. Keep on trucking.

After all the crazy stuff I talked about in this article, if you happen to have come away with a fear or real concern... please ease up. The truth is Google didn't put anyone out of business, and AI may do that one day, but we aren't close yet. Thing is, AI can do some amazing things, and it should be in everyone's toolbelt.

Part of my experience with AI currently it has helped me personally in several areas. I have been able to use it to build queries for systems I've never used. It has helped me learn how to very quickly fix my mixes and adjust LUFS with tools I already had. It's helped me find this website where I blog. It's helped figure out my team I just took over. It's helped me understand my brain a little more. It's helped me fix my sprinkler system. It's helped me find good Bible verses.

Other things I haven't personally used, but I see being used - AI helping people code, building apps, being integrated with other tooling, creating different chatbots to help people perform different functions.

However much as any tool, it also has it's downsides. It's not always right and you have to sometimes use it as a guide and not exactly as it's told. It's user input, so you can ask it a garbage question and get a garbage answer. Lots of folks are using it right now to write communications... and it's obvious. Some folks at work are using it to lazily make documents. I see folks online using ChatGPT as a therapist, and while it can help...

Well it's not human. It doesn't think. It's not an entity. It's technology. It's a data base with a computer that does processing. We should treat it as such and prepare for the future! Here's the thing here; what's different about AI than Google is that we already saw what Google did, but it was like a secret weapon. AI is no secret. It's here and everyone is using it to some degree; this is where you can take ahold of it and really use it to excel and do some good in the world.

Have fun!