We have hit an inflection point in AI capabilities. AGI? No. Usefulness ++. Capability much higher than you think… Risk, absolutely.
We have been researching, analysing and preparing for our upcoming workshop Architecture of AI | Architecting for AI. Things are moving fast, and accelerating. Many things I would have said ”Nah, not really” to in November are now firmly a “Yes, provided you do it right”.
Several trends and developments are converging in powerful ways:
Foundation models have become very good at understanding language, both input and output
Smaller, cheaper, local and on-device models are now very capable for particular applications
Agentic capabilities are maturing and allowing models and tools to act instead of just inform or advise. They also allow spawning multiple long running, goal seeking tasks in parallel
Natural language interfaces, both written and spoken, are dissolving UI barriers across productivity software, technical environments (operating systems and development tools) and enterprise software (ERP and SaaS). Users can now build complex workflows across heterogeneous environment without technical specialists
World View models are maturing - endowing AI systems with 3D real world knowledge and enabling them to operate in the physical world (Robots, androids, self driving vehicles)
Tools for developers are growing up fast, integrating tightly into toolchains, local file systems, remote code repositories and deployment infrastructures. A select few shops are getting massive productivity gains, while others are finding AI slows productivity! The difference is in the lifecycle, workflow and skills. The benefits are achievable, but not easy to realise
Ontologies and formal logic are underpinning next generation AI systems that will provide deterministic behaviour, eliminating hallucinations, while improving efficiency by orders of magnitude
What we are seeing is a plethora of power tools. There are titanic battles taking place for infrastructure, market share, capabilities, emerging “standards” and dominance. It is an exciting but dangerous time. To use an analogy of carpentry: power tools will allow some to build houses twice as fast, while others may chop off limbs.
At an individual level, the risks are mainly to privacy, accuracy and productivity. At a corporate level there are major security, privacy, intellectual property, reputation and competitive capability risks. There are grave dangers of enterprise architectures, policies and governance unravelling. OTOH there are massive opportunities that we cannot ignore without losing competitiveness.
Today’s rabbit picture suggests that we should at least hitch a ride, rather than getting run over or plodding through the landscape. Join our workshop coming up on 23- 24 March to see how →
Watch this space for the next instalment!