Each month, “Lochhead on Different” episodes explore the need to differentiate people, products, and services in a world that encourages a lot of imitation. Christopher Lochhead is a best-selling author, top podcaster, and former tech-industry CMO. Today, Christopher explains how the explosion of ChatGPT into work environments is redefining workers’ “value stacks” and the pyramid of valuable careers. AI and ML tools like ChatGPT and DALL-E have kick-started “the death of the knowledge worker, and the birth of the intellectual capitalist.”
Episode 26 | AI and the Rise of the Intellectual Capitalist
Note: this episode contains explicit language.
The Big Themes:
- Knowledge workers are no longer at the top of the pyramid: Careers like lawyer, doctor, and engineer have long been highly valuable and widely esteemed, but by making tons of knowledge readily accessible and mostly free, tools like ChatGPT are going to push knowledge workers down in the career pyramid.
- The rise of the intellectual capitalist: The creation of “net-new knowledge” (intellectual capital, or IC) is going to define the highly valuable and esteemed careers of tomorrow.
- ChatGPT and other AI tools should be embraced: Yes, there will be jobs lost and people who use these tools for nefarious reasons, but as a society we must embrace the possibilities and opportunities they present. For example, these tools should not be banned in schools, but instead used to spark conversation and creativity.
The Big Quote: “If you’ve ever created anything new of value for yourself and or your company, in your work, whether you realize it or not, you’re an intellectual capitalist… And the big aha now is to take that from the back of your mind to the front of your mind. Ask yourself, what IC have I created already? How am I being super thoughtful about leveraging my IC to make a difference, to create value for others, and for myself?”
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