Generative AI in Practice: 100+ Amazing Ways Generative Artificial Intelligence is Changing Business and Society by Bernard Marr.
He holds degrees in business, engineering and information technology from the University of Cambridge and Cranfield School of Management. He has written several books and two that I have read include his 2015 release Big Data Using smart big data and his recent book Artificial Intelligence in Practice. That said, this book falls short. I feel this was a rushed effort to get into the Generative AI hype cycle.
So here, Bernard is focusing on Generative AI as the biggest advancement in technology in the history of the world and how ChatGPT is driving this new somewhat magic service. Actually the metrics seem to confirm: 10 million users within 30 days of launch and then a stunning 100 million within the next 60 days. Simply put, the fastest adoption of technology in the history of computing. But don’t forget the cost Bernard.
In the rush for all things Generative AI, this new subset of Machine Learning is driving the AI hype cycle even higher than many would conclude possible. Generative AI can of course create visual graphics, computer code, and music. Seems to be the ‘generative’ in Generative AI.
Just a Gen AI hype cycle book
Bernard rolls out a series of Generative AI topics in chapter format. Yet this seems so simple to explain that everything in the world will change with AI. Of course it will. The degree and effectiveness not withstanding, this is a very predictable storyline. Yes, it should certainly be obvious that AI is shaping up to significantly alter business, education and society. But not every chapter is groundbreaking.
In many ways I view this as if Bernard was introducing the world wide web in 1990 by revealing how something called a ‘browser’ would change everything.
There are much better titles that introduce Generative AI. Look here: Introduction to Generative AI by by Numa Dhamani and Maggie Engler and also Generative AI: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review. Actually Numa and Maggie reveal OpenAI’s compute costs on Azure surpass a whopping $700,000/day to deliver all that GenAI. Which also makes one think how is OpenAI in business if they are giving this away for free?
In conclusion, I was really hoping for the same respected insights Bernard published in his previous books. He missed here – quite badly. Wow I was so disappointed. Perhaps this shows how much the AI hype cycle is demanding authors churn out any title on AI.