Are we truly ready for AI?

Think you are ready for AI? AI is evolving so fast, I don't think any of us can realistically say we are fully prepared for what's next.

This UnfilteredFriday let's talk about the impact of AI. And I don't think anyone can envision how it will reshape our future.

Good uses, bad uses

After the blow to its image from DeepSeek R1, OpenAI reclaimed the spotlight last week with the launch of its jaw-dropping GPT-4o image generation upgrade.

As everyone went crazy with Ghibli-style photos and image generation in general, it didn't take long for more nefarious use cases to appear.

• Fake receipts.
• Misuse of brand names, logos.
• Misinformation through fake images.

Sure, there are subtle signs to watch for. But the barrier has never been lower, and I'm sure most receipt capture apps today will simply accept fake receipts.

Impact on jobs

I've always shared that I was terrified when ChatGPT appeared, and that's why I make myself write more than I've ever had before.

The asymmetric and varied capabilities of AI mean that the jobs it directly impacts are growing very quickly, too.

Here are some examples I've seen over the last few days:

• Swapping furniture around a photo using prompts.
• Fully AI-generated video podcast recording.
• Converting sketches into realistic images.
• Create colouring books from photos.
• Customised comic stripes.

The gap is narrowing in scores, maybe hundreds of niche jobs once done by humans. I think it's only a matter of time before more jobs are lost.

Prompting skills getting less important

And oh, just in case you think your AI prompting-fu will put you ahead of your peers, prompting is a lot less important with the latest generation of AI models.

Good prompts still give you an edge, yes. But AI models, especially reasoning models, understand context and nuances a lot better now.

And they will continue to get better.

In my view, the only edge we hold is really our flexibility in using AI and innate creativity.

Would love to hear your thoughts.