Doomscrolling through LinkedIn or any tech site these days, I often find myself completely overwhelmed by the flood of #AI posts. There is so much content to learn from and I can’t wrap my head around all the possible applications. It’s as if I was given a new Swiss army knife with sixteen funny looking tools and now I am asked to do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING with it. The problem is I have no idea which tool is for which job, or when to use what.
Instead of letting this anxiety get the better of me, I’ve decided to approach AI possibilities much like inspecting a quirky tool on the Swiss army knife.
How does this weird thing work?
When dealing with something unfamiliar, it comes quite naturally to pick it up and turn it about to get a sense of it. Is it sharp or bland? Is it delicate or robust? I am trying something similar with some of the AI tools. Is this for chatting or does it do a concrete job? Does it come out of the box or does it need programming? And when my own personal experience fails me, I look around to see how far others have understood it.
Experimentation is a great way to build familiarity and leads right into the next challenge: choosing the right tool for the job.
Will any of these things do the job for me?
The best feature of the army knife, is that it is small enough to carry around and put in use when a problem arises. But given the problem, what tool to use? Maybe you actually need more than one. Even if you don’t what the actual purpose of the tool you can always try it out to see if it does the job. After a couple of attempts to solve problems, you will at least know if a certain tool is fit for a certain job or not.
Of course, there are moments when experimenting isn’t quite enough.
Maybe I just call a plumber…
It might be that someone can fix a broken pipeline with a Swiss army knife and some adhesive tape, but that person might not be necessarily you. You can try to do your best work, but at the end of the day it is OK to call an expert when the water is flooding the house. Some AI solutions are still experimental and even though some skilful people can do wonders with it, it doesn’t mean that everyone could or should.
Each one of us has their own learning pace and different levels of creativity when it comes to new challenges. All the AI hype can be overwhelming. But we can all take it a step at a time and try to experiment with our Swiss army knife. Even if it is for something as simple as cutting bread.
More Questions Than Answers 
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