Traction Heroes Ep. 47: Automating

Harry and I have been helping businesses think about how to best use AI. As you’d expect, we bring a strategic focus to this work. Which is why in episode 47 of Traction Heroes, I read a fragment from Stefanie Hutka’s new book, What Your Machines Should Do. Stephanie describes the breakneck pace of AI developments, and notes: Beneath this momentum is a rarely examined assumption. Human thinking is a process that can be separated from the thinker and reproduced by a machine. If that assumption is true, then full automation is just an engineering problem on a timeline. If it isn’t (decades of cognitive neuroscience research suggest it isn’t), then the destination of ‘automate everything’ needs rethinking. AI’s momentum is also no longer confined to software or knowledge work. It’s rapidly taking physical form. Stroll down any street in San Francisco, and there’s a good chance you’ll see more than one autonomous vehicle shuttling its passengers to their destination. Companies like Figure…