Entries Written By Alistair Vince
The100: Bubbles of blinkeredness, going wide and Montell Jordan
“Treat the AI like an infinitely patient research assistant” Sharing a metric tonne of sense, Neil Perkin has some great tips on using GenAI as a thought partner. I particularly like the idea of using LLMs to play the role of your audience and asking it to critique presentations: “You can give it context like …
The100: AI notetakers, purposeful inefficiency, and Gloria Steinem
Negative social proof We’re a funny bunch of fish, us humans. And Richard Shotton has been reminding us why. He’s been looking at the pitfalls of trying to shock people into action by flagging negative behaviours, because you either excuse yourself (‘not me’) or you plead helplessness: “Either way, our behaviour is unlikely to change. …
The100: Walking in stupid, trend reports and jukeboxes
It’s like ray-eee-aaaain A bit like Turkeys voting for Christmas, Microsoft has co-authored a paper showing that using AI can weaken humans’ critical thinking skills. “[A] key irony of automation is that by mechanising routine tasks and leaving exception-handling to the human user, you deprive the user of the routine opportunities to practice their judgement …
The100: The forecasting paradox, haptic nostalgia & The Goonies
Prediction Pre-mortems Tim Harford wrote this fascinating piece on the forecasting paradox and “prospective hindsight”. One sentence stood out to me, especially with the plethora of trend reports that float around at this time of year: “Thinking seriously about the future can be a worthwhile exercise, not because the future is knowable but because the …
The100: Dodgy data, being bored and The Kierkegaard Edit
Don’t trust the data Jane Frost, CEO of the Market Research Society, shared some sage words along with Grant Feller’s story about how wrong people were to trust data. Gulp. Grant said: “Data deceives. We’re in awe of it and yet we don’t ask the right questions of it. Why? So what? Why does it …
The100: Saying no, staying human and Hollywood
Well, that went quickly. First week back, so forgive the dustiness. I thought I’d start the year with 9 reminders to take you into 2025… 1. Watching works I must admit to a touch of bias here, but if you don’t believe me, read what the CEO of KFC in China had to say. 2. …
The100: The best of 2024
Well! You lot like a video (good news for us). And you also like to be amused. Stacked with nostalgia, empathy, trends, and social issues, here are the 10 most clicked links in The100 during 2024. Hold onto your hats… In 10th The Valeriepieris Circle – one-sixth of the world’s land area, but more people …
The100: Human behaviour, human resources and Hugh Grant
Human behaviours The Ogilvy Behavioural Science annual is always an excellent read and Creative Salon have picked out what they learned from it. You’ll be unsurprised to hear that I particularly liked this quote: “Get away from your desk. Physically go where your audience is. Observe their body language. Watch them interact with each other, …
The100: The future of Insights, divine discontent & retro TV
See you in Chicago? Roll up, roll up! Tickets for our in person event Humans & AI: How do we understand people better? are now liveeeee. We have 5 superb speakers plus a client panel lined up, including regular cast member of The100, Tom Goodwin (somebody pinch me). It’s in Chicago on March 6th. Best …
The100: Impatience, going analogue and Stephen Fry
Frying AI No massive revelation here (my cat provides as much insight when she sneezes), but Stephen Fry is very good with words. If you haven’t read his speech on AI, may I suggest you make a brew, switch off all notifications, and start reading. And I mean properly read. Maybe even do so twice. …