The Real Advantage of AI? It Saves You Time (Premium)

I've told this story before, but it's perhaps instructive. Years ago, I stayed with friends in France for a week and after pulling a ThinkPad out of my bag, my friend's wife commented that she used a Mac because of all the bugs and problems with Windows. How long ago was that, I asked? It was seven years ago, she said. Then your opinion is out-of-date, was my reply, Windows has improved a lot since then. (And I wasn't trying to be a jerk about it, but left unsaid was that I also used a Mac and very much preferred Windows, as I still do today.)

I don't point out this story to embarrass my friend's wife, she's great. Like all of us, she's the product, in part, of her life experiences. The issue, of course, is that many of our experiences are out-of-date or even non-existent. And yet, many of us still have opinions--very strong opinions, sometimes--about topics we're perhaps not well versed on.

AI is like that. Hell, AI is that.

I can't tell you how many times I've been told, unsolicited, that someone has "never found a use for AI," or that all AI is does is "regurgitate useless information," "produce garbage," or whatever. The details never matter. These opinions are voiced mostly so that person can receive calming affirmation from whomever they're accosting. And I suspect that most of these utterances, whether they're about AI or any other topic--Windows 11 on Arm or the new Outlook, anyone?--are indeed met with a vague or even explicit agreement. Sometimes just so they can get past the rant and move on. And sometimes, sure, maybe they do agree. I may agree.

But these opinions about AI, mine included, are as out-of-date as my friend's wife's opinions about Windows and PCs. The difference between now and then is that AI is evolving much faster than Windows and the PC did. And our opinions aren't keeping up. Not that that's ever stopped anybody. It's a grand American tradition, especially among us middle-aged white guys, to opine on any topic regardless of experience, and to expect the audience to nod along silently and admire your genius. I know this tradition isn't restricted to America. But we are uniquely good at it. He says, trying to avoid that mirror.

Here's the thing.

Like virtually everyone, I struggled with understanding AI when it exploded out of the gate in the wake of Microsoft's first Copilot (then Bing Chat) announcement in early 2023. I went through what I jokingly call the seven stages of grief in trying to understand the impact that AI would or would not have on our lives. (The key to this joke being I can rename any or all of the steps each time I mention it.) I watched in astonishment as conservative Microsoft, before then a slow-moving and predictable cloud-focused company under Satya Nadella, suddenly turned on the afterburners and got aggressive again. I have never seen a turnaround quite like it, and I'm still not sure what to make of the company we now deal with. It's entirely different in many ways to...