Last year, freely available Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools became a recurring topic in mainstream media. This year, it’s time for all of us who use a computer at work to at least familiarize ourselves with these free tools, gaining a sense of how AI can make us more productive, creative, and efficient.
Ville Venäläinen, a future researcher, software architect, and founder of Mindhive Oy, a service design and digitalization consultancy from Mikkeli, has made it his mission to help individuals, companies, and public-sector organizations in Etelä-Savo understand the impact of AI on our livelihood and to start exploring the opportunities it presents. One way he does this is by touring Etelä-Savo with Mindhive’s AI Summer School.
“Many people are not aware that they can use AI tools for free or nearly for free to significantly enhance their work,” Ville says. “This is understandable, though. With new technological breakthroughs being in the news on a weekly basis, it is quite natural for anyone to be a little intimidated. The best feedback we’ve received from Summer School participants is when they’ve said that, thanks to the training, they finally dared to play with a tool like ChatGPT, now that they knew where to start.”
Some urgency involved
In fact, due to the exponential development of AI capabilities, there is some urgency involved if we don’t want companies and the public sector in our region to structurally fall behind.
“Things will become really volatile soon, in the sense that we really can’t know what will happen,” Ville says. “This is the first time in history that we have a new technology which is not only capable of taking over some of the things we do, but which can also come up with things we didn’t realize could be done.”
Because of all these fast changes ahead, Ville thinks the only way to harness and leverage the technology is by using it. “I see it as a wave, perhaps even a tsunami, and we need to ride on top of it in order not to get washed aside. That means we need to follow and learn about all the technological breakthroughs that are happening, and quickly experiment and innovate with them.”
Re-finding each other
Ville reminds us that traditionally, in Etelä-Savo we have been used to benchmarking best practices from outside of our region, to adapt them to our own ways of working. He would like to see this practice turned around:
“Let’s work on solving our own problems with home-grown solutions. Let’s leverage that innovation and expertise to create new business opportunities, helping clients outside of Etelä-Savo.”
Undoubtedly, the advent of AI means that there is uncertainty ahead. Ville’s hope, however, is that as human beings, we will “find each other again.” As a group, we are more resilient, stronger, and safer. Working more closely together may be just what we need.
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