Termites not Tornados are the Apt Metaphor for GenAI per HBS Professor Ghosh
A reminder as firms finalize 2024 plans and GenAI backlash is seen in some areas
Our Generative AI World 2023 conference last September was full of great insights. One that was repeated by other speakers was from HBS Professor Shikhar Ghosh, who stated that termites are a much better metaphor than tornados for GenAI. This is a good reminder as companies finalize their GenAI 2024 plans.
“When the internet first came along, we said it is going to disrupt a bunch of industries.
And it did, but it took a long time.
What people have in their minds is this notion of tornadoes that come and wipe out an industry, or wipe out a function, or wipe out creative people’s work, or any of these things.
My model of the world is that it’s going to be much more like termites than tornados.
What you are going to hear is not the destruction of whole categories of work or categories of economic activity. Instead, you are going to see a gradual weakening of the business models”
— HBS Professor Shikhar Ghosh
Watch a video of Shikhar Ghosh’s comments here
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Notable upcoming events
(TONIGHT) Jan 15. 5:30p-7p (in-person, free). AI Woodstock - Atlanta at the Battery in Atlanta, GA for GenAI networking event. RSVP here.
(TONIGHT) Jan 15: 7p EST (virtual, free) Learning Lab discussion - Learn how to CREATE YOUR OWN GPT WITH OPENAI and use the GPT Store. Sign up here.
Jan 31: Noon EST (virtual, free) Case study of why one team at MIT chose a no-code LLM solution from CustomGPT to meet a pressing need. Register here
Apr 8 (all day - in person; free): The Future of Business with AI at MIT Media Lab. Last year, speakers included Sam Altman from OpenAI, Vinod Khosla, Lex Fridman, Stephen Wolfram, etc.
May 7: (in person) Harvard Business School GenAI Conference.
Oct 7-8 (2 days. in-person, paid): Generative AI World 2024 in Boston, MA. This is our flagship annual conference.
“Well done is better than well said.” - Ben Franklin
Onward,
Paul