Are you an AI Thinker?

AI thinking is equal parts skill and art. Join us in exploring this new field! New posts every week.

Photo by DeepMind on Unsplash

If you work in Tech or with technology firms, chances are, you’ve heard of “design thinking” and “product thinking”.

With the rise of accessible Artificial Intelligence, we believe a new skill — “AI Thinking” — will not only be useful, but necessary. Here’s what will make you an AI thinker:

AI Awareness

Grasping how an AI works is the first step in using AI to solve problems:

• The fundamental concepts, strengths, and weaknesses of AI, machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision

• The importance of training data and algorithms

• Awareness of potential biases in AI systems and ethical implications of their use

Problem Framing

Instead of blindly applying AI to every problem just because it is the “next big thing”, AI thinkers will need to:

• understand whether a problem can leverage AI's strengths

• look at potential alternatives to ascertain if there is a better solution

• identify tasks that should be tackled by AI algorithms instead of traditional solutions and reimagine workflows to incorporate them

Data-Driven Decision Making

Leveraging AI's ability to process and analyse vast quantities of information, AI thinkers can make more informed decisions by:

• Identifying patterns and trends quickly using AI

• Learning how to interpret and act upon the insights derived from AI analysis

Prompt Engineering

Explaining your task to the AI is the foundation of interacting with modern AI system:

• Explain the task to the AI in a way that it has complete context of the problem and understands the desired output format

• Ensure no bias enters and improve based on performance

• Fine-tune with examples (to identify pattern) where context is hard to explain simply as an instruction. Sometimes it is better to “show” than “tell”.

Continuous Learning

AI will evolve in its capabilities faster than we can imagine. Every week, hundreds of new AI tools are launched. AI thinkers will be:

• willing to adapt, experiment, and learn fast

• informed about the latest developments, best practices, and emerging ethical considerations

In the gradual reshaping of our world over the next few decades, AI thinking will become an increasingly valuable skill for innovators, problem solvers, and leaders alike.