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Since generative AI tools became available to us all late last year, many people have asked me for my thoughts on the technology — particularly ChatGPT. If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you can probably predict that my approach to these innovations is similar to the way I approach any new challenge or development: I love to learn and am always open to exploring new opportunities.
I’ve spent the last several months immersing myself in all the resources I could find about generative AI. I also set up a ChatGPT account to experiment and test its capabilities, even though I had some reservations at first. As this technology grows in power and potential, it will require regulations and guardrails as many have pointed out — including the CEO of OpenAI himself. As always with something new, I’m approaching it with optimism and thoughtful curiosity.
It wasn’t until I shared ChatGPT with my 75-year-old mother that I started to become genuinely excited about its potential. My mother lives in India and had only just heard about ChatGPT. Despite her initial hesitation, she gave it a try. She prompted it to write a poem in Shakespearian style about her home back in the village and started enjoying her new assistant! She was able to see how this technology could be useful in so many ways and that it could also be fun.
It’s worth reiterating that I’m well aware of the risks that come with it — ethics, copyright, security and many other critical issues that need to be resolved. I’m keeping a close eye on these conversations. But the reality is, this tech is here to stay, and it will result in a cognitive revolution akin to the Industrial Revolution.
And that’s why my personal approach to generative AI has been to activate my growth mindset. While I recognize there are legitimate concerns and questions around these tools, I’m energized by their possibilities and potential. For business leaders and entrepreneurs who are also new to generative AI, here’s how embracing a growth mindset has helped me navigate this new technological frontier.
Related: 5 Ways Artificial Intelligence Is Radically Transforming Creativity in Business
Learn from the experts
I’m a big fan of learning as much as you can from people who know more than you do — I believe this is essential to continue growing one’s skills and knowledge. I’ve spent a lot of time reading and listening to podcasts about a wide variety of topics, including generative AI, and have found many experts whose intent to harness GPT-4 for the greater good has resonated with me.
Reid Hoffman, for example, the venture capitalist and founding CEO of LinkedIn, who was also a founding investor in OpenAI (creators of ChatGPT), recently co-authored a book with GPT-4 (yes, the generative AI wrote the book with him!) entitled Impromptu: Amplifying Our Humanity Through AI. In it, he asks a key question: How does this technology make things better for human beings?
I appreciate that there are many business leaders and entrepreneurs who are looking at positive social use cases. I was similarly inspired by a recent podcast featuring Salman Khan, founder of the Khan Academy, on his collaboration with OpenAI to develop a tool that has the potential to truly democratize education. Its new GPT-4-powered learning guide, Khanmigo, acts as a tutor using highly nuanced conversation. Unlike ChatGPT, it will not generate work, but instead help to guide students through a learning process.
And this is just the beginning. As companies like Google and Microsoft accelerate the development of their own generative AI tools, I’m excited to keep applying a growth mindset to learning about emerging opportunities to make the world a better — and smarter — place.
Start experimenting with the tools
If my mother can take a growth mindset approach to generative AI by creating poetry, think about what business leaders and entrepreneurs can do with a little experimentation and creative thinking. A recent Gartner poll showed that 70% of organizations are already exploring how they can leverage generative AI, and 68% of executives believe the benefits outweigh the risks.
With an open mind and curiosity, anyone can find ways to put this technology to good use. And many entrepreneurs are already doing so, using it to inspire ideas, conduct research, develop content and even improve their work processes. If you can save time by delegating menial tasks to the bots, you get more time to engage in work you’re truly passionate about.
I’ve personally experimented with ChatGPT for content generation (and for the record, it did not co-author this article). I initially asked it to write a piece about applying a growth mindset to exploring generative AI, and I fed it some of my previous LinkedIn articles so it could write in my style. The results weren’t bad!
As fun as it is to play around, I think the real value in tools like ChatGPT is their ability to amplify our collective brain power. Just imagine the possibilities for people all over the world and what they’ll be able to accomplish with the help of this technology. It all starts with a willingness to learn, grow and explore.
Related: 3 Forward-Looking Mindsets Entrepreneurs Need to Have About AI
Reframe fear as opportunity
While the last few years have sent us a lot of curveballs, I don’t think many of us had a generative AI revolution in our predictions for 2023. But now that it’s happening, we need to approach it constructively. For me, that means embracing it as an opportunity. And I’m not the only one. Only two months after its launch, ChatGPT had already set a record for the fastest-growing user base, reaching 100 million active users. Many people are setting their fears aside and opening themselves up to the untapped possibilities this technology can offer them.
Whether we have mild reservations or feel full-on panic about the future of AI, it’s clearly here to stay and it will undoubtedly change the way we live and do business. In many ways, it already is. Those who don’t learn how to use it will inevitably risk not keeping pace with the future. On the other hand, taking a growth mindset approach by being curious, open-minded and willing to learn may just inspire you to find ways to use it to improve your own life. At its core, large language models and generative AI have the potential to magnify human intellect and be our buddy or co-pilot, or in some cases, even our guru! There’s never been a better time to imagine — and create — a better future.
