From AI Hype to AI Success in 4 Steps

Bruce is the founder of ProjectManagementHacks.com, a resource for growing IT project managers.

  Artificial Intelligence  

Artificial intelligence hype remains high. At the same time, the fundamentals of data governance and quality remain shaky in many organizations. You need a strong data foundation for applied AI to generate value with a minimum of errors (i.e., “hallucinations”).

Highlighting the link between quality data and AI is a welcome counterpoint to the heady days of late 2022 when ChatGPT launched. Since that time, spending on AI has boomed. Some companies, like Nvidia, profit from AI by selling products that enable AI. Other companies haven’t yet found the correct use case.

To chart your path forward in AI in 2024 and beyond, I recommend a different, four-step approach:

1. Reset your AI expectations
As a technology enthusiast and lifelong science fiction fan, I generally have positive views about AI. That said, I’m all too aware of the potential downsides. Two brief stories about AI illustrate the range of possibilities.

In the 1941 short story “Reason” by Issac Asimov, humanity builds a new generation of robots suffering from what we might call hallucinations. Consider that to be the pessimistic view.

The optimistic end of the spectrum is represented in Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Data is known for his curious, scientific and human-oriented outlook.

I’m not saying that science fiction offers a practical …

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