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✏ Five Communication Insights from Collision Conf 2024 This week, I attended Collision Conf in Toronto. I’d like to share five key insights about communications from the event. 1. We need to learn more about algorithms and how to use social media correctly. Social media suggests content we might be interested in, which is helpful. In Frank McCourt's session on Tuesday, he discussed his intention to buy and transform TikTok. Regardless of TikTok's fate, McCourt highlighted how algorithms can keep us apart. While not inherently bad, we should look beyond algorithms and reflect on the content we get. 2. Having digital librarians might be a good idea. On Tuesday, during “The big picture: What will AI do to society?”, panelist Joan Donovan made an interesting point. With so much online information coming from countless sources, it's hard to know when we're receiving disinformation. Just like how librarians can help us distinguish between different content categories, having something similar in the digital world might be a good idea. 3. An important insight from “Would you still love me if I was a chatbot?” was how deeply we humans want meaningful communication. Panelist Bryony Cole highlighted that in the coming years, relationships with AI will become increasingly normal. I’m not here to examine the philosophical implications of that, but it shows our growing need for connection. Perhaps there's something here for all of us to consider: What can both individuals and organizations learn from it? 4. We have more influence than we might realize. At the session “Legacy vs challenger: Finding your place on the branding spectrum,” panelist Sandy Ono explained that challenger brands set the pace, a concept applicable to the current AI adoption. Similarly, in the session “How to prepare for AI taking your job,” speaker Quinn Slack said we can have a say on how AI will adapt, and make it work for us. Even if we’re not computer scientists, we can still learn how to use AI to our advantage. 5. The sooner we learn how to effectively use AI, the better. During the “Cutting through the hype of AI in journalism,” editor Harry McCracken shared a quote he heard somewhere, something like: You are not going to be replaced by AI, but you’re probably being replaced by someone who uses AI better than you do. As he explained, this doesn’t mean having AI generate stories. What’s key here is knowing which tools can help us do our jobs — human jobs — more efficiently. Wrapping up with something computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton said on Wednesday: The way we understand AI is like what a physicist knows about a leaf falling from a tree. They know the factors influencing its movement, but it’s hard to know exactly where it will touch the ground. Great analogy. Right now, this leaf is being pushed by different forces — technology, the market, governments. It's just a guess as to how it will look in the next few years. -- Hat tip: Daniel Schloss and Mary Cirincione.
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4wSmashing Collision Conf insights from the one and only Jairo Araya Barrantes 💥👏