Attention, focus and AI

There is a lot of hype around #AI, and it’s capabilities. The topic is hot and people are flocking any demo or announcement of the major players.

There is optimism, yet there are a lot of possible secondary implications. I am not going to explore a lot, as there is already lots of materials. What I am thinking right now is the “focus” need.

In my personal experience, what I find most difficult is to keep focus on the intended mission. Why did I start using the tool in the first place? We are living in an attention draining environment. It is already documented and people speak about attention related issues in today’s digital world. By me AI is going to amplify this. Working with AI involves prompting, repeatedly, in various formats, tweaking and revisiting.

I will compare working with AI to metal crafting, where multiple steps and operations work together for a final results. Each operation by itself might be more or less related to the intended purpose. Chaining them creates a process that results in the desired output. When working in a known process, the steps are known and the result is pretty much predictable. This is then amplified by automation, and has been pretty much solved in the last 50-60 years by industrial automation. This can not yet be said about working with or around AI, where the process is not defined.

In this context, keeping a good focus on the goal, on the desired outcome or solution becomes important. What do I want to achieve needs to be clear at all times. All all times one should be capable to detemine if the last delivered step is both of good enough quality and also towards the right direction.

This is where critical thinking comes to play. This is why AI might be the best companion for humans, helping us build a strong attention skill.

So, in the end, the question relies around what AI will enhance in humans. Will AI make us more focused or it will take us further in the attention drift?