What, in your opinion, are the primary driving factors behind the prolific AI content we see on this platform (i.e., PMC, Blog, and Articles)?

Rami,

I would like to know how you define AI, in other words, how you would explain it to someone else. Specifically, how would you describe it outside the confines of a “technology-enabled tool,” or what I like to say, “hard-won software engineering.”

The premise of AI (i.e., artificial intelligence) implies something that does NOT exist, but no one wants to reserve this term for the singularity event that it should be reserved for. Instead, they want to keep the term hyperbolized for one purpose.

Is AI, as you understand it, more than a tool?

George, I definitely see your point of view. If I am to be honest with you, I see AI as a “Human Assistant” whether its a tool, robots or other hardware but I agree, the term itself AI should be more global that just focusing on one thing but I don’t know how else to define it. Any suggestions on your end?

Thank you for the reply Rami,

Anything of substance that lacks a transparent or principled foundation will implode under the scrutiny of time.

For instance, if we take the “AI as human assistant” paradigm that you mentioned, and we play out the example scenario (as I see some have) where AI is the assistant for “ethical decision making.” What could happen?

Those who believe that “AI brings answers to what’s ailing the world” would believe that using AI in ethical decision-making is a giant leap forward, as it would diminish or eliminate the concern of human bias entering the process.

Although altruistic, the lifecycle perspective of this idea finds countless implosions. Then consider the next logical progression where AI becomes an assistant for a Judge and then a Jury. You get my point. For many, removing or mitigating the human condition from these equations is the answer to what’s ailing the world.

Challenging lifecycle perspectives now, before scenarios such as these gain traction, is, in my mind, extremely important. Unfortunately, the hyperbolic fascination phase of AI that we are in now clouds that ability. In other words, we are in the wild-wild-west, and moderative views are few and far between.

I had to look up the definition of “bauble.” – a new day, a new word (at least for me).

I understand the enthusiasm and desire to be on the “bleeding edge” of AI-based technologies to empower the profession. But there is a “cautionary tale” to be told. Unfortunately, I don’t know if those tales have a voice in the PMI halls.

Hyperbolic, non-grounded enthusiasm seldom generates a tasty fruit at maturity.

Unfortunately, PMI needs to reflect current trends whether they generate real value or not. As I posted a few days ago in LinkedIn, it would be great if there were even a fraction of the volume of posts related to AI dedicated to resolving long standing, well understood challenges with project delivery such as weak sponsorship, ineffective risk management, poor tailoring of approach or "checklist" PM behaviors.

Kiron

“Reflecting current trends” is an understandable goal, but at a deeper, not-stated level, one could surmise that we are also “embracing those things that, at some level, threaten our profession.”

For instance, from an Agile purest perspective, project management is an archaic dinosaur that needs to find, with some assistance, its path to extinction. So, besides the practical benefits of PMI embracing Agile principles in project management (along with the frameworks and certifications), we seemingly cut the purist off at the pass.

So-called AI carries the same perspective dangers in that it has the potential to put some cracks in our foundation that others would like to take advantage of. So, I wonder if there is some truth to this viewpoint.

So, if both these points have a basis, I would say that 2023 satisfied the need. Hence, let’s turn the corner and take 2024 down the path of addressing the practical ailments infecting our profession— Resolving the long-standing and well-understood challenges associated with project delivery (great point, Kiron!).

Proxy-shilling is a messy grey-zone-type engagement approach if institutionalized. So, I’ve appreciated that our Community Engagement Specialists (and other PMI’ers) are driving some precision topics on AI. However, if one of the purposes of this engagement was to focus community responses and questions on AI (i.e., reduce the shrapnel activity), then it may not be working. In other words, it may, in actuality, have the impact of increasing the number of threads on the subject due to “social comfortness” factors.

It may be helpful to “pin” an “AI Reference” subject to the top of PMC that includes some information and links on the subject (e.g., the PMI “Artificial Intelligence in Project Management”). If well-written, this pinned content would direct folks to these other resources and then point them to create a post in PMC if they had further questions.

Just a thought.

Keith Novak - Jumping in to address the reflections on the role that the Online Community Engagement Specialists play in encouraging discussion here (and yes, I'm definitely watching plenty of cute cat videos in my off hours).

One of the reasons I love online communities and have stayed in the industry for 10+ years now is because it's such a joy to never know what is top of mind for community members until they post their thoughts. It's truly impossible to predict what topics are going to take off - and any sort of question might to come in at any moment of any day from around the world.

My team does proactively post discussions to get the conversation going, much like a host of a dinner party doesn't just let the table sit in silence waiting for someone else to start talking...my team also, on occasion, reaches out to community members 1:1 to solicit questions, including the offer to post on their behalf with their permission. One of our goals is to increase the number of unique contributors here, and I've often found that people are a bit shy to post on their own, but when asked, really appreciate the help getting started jumping in to the conversation.

No one knows what will take off next, whether it's Citizen Developer, AI, or something else, which is another part of my team's process: monitoring what community topics or groups need to be launched and which need to be sunset over time, too.

I'm always happy to share any more about the approaches we take to broaden the types of voices that we hear in the discussion forums, so don't hesitate to reach out 1:1 to dive into these ideas about community management in more detail.

Not to get too meta here, but it would be interesting to use an AI tool as a filter on new discussions, especially AI related ones. If a member posts a new thread related to AI, the tool would check for a matching, existing thread, and politely suggest to the member that they comment on the existing one rather than creating a new one...

Having tested and refined it on AI-related threads, the tool could then be extended to ALL discussion topics which would vastly improve the signal:noise ratio.

The next refinement would be to automatically cull "I agree with X" type comments on posts :-)

Kiron

Unfortunately, I don't think better guidelines would do much more than provide a termporarily warm fuzzy feeling that "We tried." It is almost a universal truth that quality safeguards which depend on people reading and following instructions don't work, and doubly so on internet message boards.

As a veteran of various forums over many years, I sometimes feel like I should get a big tattoo in Gothic calligraphy that reads: Munus Quaerere Utere (use the search function).