Part 1 of 5 in a blog series looking at AI’s journey since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022.

In the noughties, I started blogging about the action research into collaboration I had been conducting for over a decade. Following an approach from a US publisher, my first book, “Human Interactions”, was published in 2005. I spent the next few years on the road, explaining the formal theory of human collaborative work to academics, businesses, and governments. One conversation was particularly memorable, with a professor of management at Oxford University.

“So,” he said, once I had finished setting out key ideas, “you want to change the way that everyone does everything.”

“Uh, yes, I guess,” I replied.

“Well, good luck with that,” he said.

Prophetic words. Over the two decades since, I have had as many failures as successes, and often the successes reverted back to failures once I stepped away personally. However, there is an upside. You learn a lot more from failure than from success. In my case, I have come to understand about vested interests, and how they can render history circular.

By contrast, time and again I have worked with people who achieved immediate success, and took away from the experience a powerful belief in their own personal judgement and ability. Unfortunately, however, success is typically not transferable from a specific domain at a specific period to different areas of life, different aims, and different situations.

This makes successful people dangerous. They treat their past triumph as evidence for always being right, when in fact it simply means they were lucky enough to get it right once. They may have just been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time – and to get out before the limitations of what they provided became apparent.

The AI industry as a whole is heading full-tilt in this direction. Astonishing early demonstrations of what an LLM can do have led pioneers to aim higher and higher. Platform providers train models in ever more areas of human expertise, and are aiming for broad-based human capability (aka Artificial General Intelligence). Meanwhile, the foundations are more like sand than rock.

Every day we hear a new example of LLM failure – or rather, of a failed workflow that uses LLM technology. People are coming to recognise the danger of relying on LLM responses, but the attraction of doing it – if only to save precious time in the working day – is so powerful that they do it anyway.

LLMs alone have limitations. That’s why we built Dedoctive – to enable a foundational technology of huge potential value to be used safely, with confidence, and without creating a public scandal.

In the next instalment of this blog series, I’ll look at the limitations of LLMs, which we designed Dedoctive to remedy.

Author

Keith Harrison-Broninski is an author, researcher, and keynote speaker specialising in cross-boundary collaboration, community antifragility, and technology for good. Keith’s awards include from Gartner for social enterprise and from the NHS for technology to replicate healthcare innovations.

Keith’s first book “Human Interactions” (2005) was described by Information Age as “the overarching framework for 21st century business technology”. Keith’s other books include two for Springer and three for the Workflow Management coalition. Keith’s most recent book “Supercommunities” (2021) was described by the Chief Executive of the RSA in his foreword as “Ranging from ancient history to economics to psychology to public policy ‘Supercommunities’ is both authoritative and highly readable. It puts our current challenges in context, shows why change is necessary and provides a trove of practical ideas for change makers.”

Vint Cerf, co-inventor of the Internet, in a second foreword, wrote “Supercommunities offers a path away from social and economic meltdown … We will need to replace short-term thinking with long term planning and execution if we are to regain upward motion towards common benefit for everyone on Spaceship Earth. To begin, read this book!”

Keith currently focuses on creating the Internet of Communities via his company’s revolutionary technology “Dedoctive” – a fundamental AI innovation, academically-validated for the MoD as fully trustworthy, that empowers reliable access to complex information for all.

Keith is also a jazz pianist, traditional folk musician, and classical composer. He has released 9 albums and performs regularly with a wide range of other musicians.

More information

Email Keith Harrison-Broninski: khb@dedoctive.ai