Ai race: filling the usability gap
The world has never felt a rate of change quite like it feels today.
Stories of the Industrial Revolution and the dawn of the internet come up a lot lately. State-of-the-art technology and usability are at a detrimental disconnect, similar to when computers were on the rise in the late 20th Century.
The iMac G3 was colorful and easy to use and new; it was the first model in Apple's iMac line of personal computers. Computers were now (1998) stylish and friendly to first-time computer users. And these new Apple computers were both premium and affordable at just under $1,000. Translucent plastics, which came in a variety of colorful flavors, were so approachable because they looked like toys.
Apple caught the tail end of the clear craze in an effort to express their vision that this computer has nothing to hide. Anyone could figure out how to use this computer because Apple (Jony Ive) showed you that everything was out on the table. Its surface was curvy, unlike the Gateways or Compaqs of the time. Machines had hard edges but this machine was round, as if it were organic.
This different machine was designed for you, the person who thinks different.
People were ready for that.
Today, people are ready to understand artificial intelligence tools but it's hard for everyone. Thought leaders galore aim to lead the herds on LinkedIn through prompt engineering and state-of-the-art software. But Midjourney can only be accessed in Discord, an app famously used by tech-savvy people. Adobe Firefly is more accessible, but Adobe products are seen as specialized tools used by professionals. All of the other ai tools are just as intimidating to new users. We hear about how these tools are useful but only to some people in some industries some of the time. It's hard to know what is useful to you.
Microsoft Copilot is only used because it's integrated in all Microsoft apps. Google Bard is the best at gathering research data but too often the information is inaccurate. ChatGPT is the go-to for writing essays and emails, but "engineering" your prompt feels too much like learning to write code. Not to mention browser extensions or software add-ons. It feels like there are secrets and everyone is seeking to uncover them.
The majority of folks are waiting for the new era. Where a product or software will bring greater change to the market by being familiar and intuitive. Perhaps with a quirky style as a means to get attention or to express a vision. Because these iterative updates we see with OpenAi, Google and Microsoft just aren't catching on as well as these companies thought they would.
The "Ai Race" is not only about improving language models so much as it's a race to find seemingly obvious solutions to our usability cries. Because that, more than anything else, is what people are ready for.