Exploring the “Between Times” of AI
Twenty years after electricity was invented, only 3% of U.S. households had access to it. It took another twenty years for electricity to become widespread. This period was often referred to as the 'between times' – a phase marking the transition from merely demonstrating the capabilities of electricity to its full realization and ubiquitous adoption. Similarly, we are currently in the 'between times' for artificial intelligence (AI), navigating the gap between showcasing its potential and achieving its widespread implementation. It is impossible to know how long the “between time” will last, with some predicting ten to fifteen years, and others suggesting superintelligence (an artificial intelligence that supersedes humans) is just around the corner.
We believe the “between times” will be defined by our ability to work with AI as our copilot. Our starting question is how can we use AI to make us more productive. At Odetta, we run data workflows that are tedious and wrought with quality issues, which we can smooth over with our thoughtful management of AI, using team members who have operational execution sense. We know exactly which AI tool or combination of tools to use to get work done so our clients don’t need to keep up. Our workflows typically involve using prompt engineering to generate data, deploying semi-automated tools for handling web page data, fixing broken automations, and performing human verification. We think that even though many manual processes might be fully automated, human supervision is essential for achieving the best outcomes with AI.
One way you can assuage the fear and anxiety inside your company around job obsoletion is by reminding the team that the creation of spreadsheets did not eliminate accountants throughout the world. The number of accountants as a share of the population has increased by over 2x in 50 years1 and every accountant uses spreadsheets. Our response is to get everybody upskilled and thinking about how they can deploy GenAI tools within their own workflow. The work that we do is going to change but our jobs won't be obsolete if we're willing to adapt.
Our vision is to shepherd AI mindfully and carefully into the workflows we run for our clients, while upskilling highly educated yet underemployed women globally.
Katharine
Use Case: Account Based and Personalized Marketing Research
Our client aims to personalize gifts for high-level executives based on their publicly available personality traits and interests. Our client asked us to do deep research on key individuals they might want to target. The idea is to learn as much as we can, from an ethical standpoint, about their preferences and watering holes. Odetta’s role is to use archetypes to understand clients' personalities and preferences for branding and marketing strategies.