Inverse AI Advice

Because advice stated in the negative is more robust than advice stated in the positive, here are five piece of inverse advice for navigating any large offshoring event, like the one we’re currently going through with AI-assisted work.

1. Avoid trading money for time on skills learned pre-transition. There are other ways to offer value. You can wrap a bigger chunk of time around your services, like offering a day or week block. Still, it’s better to stay away from offering any chunk of time around the whole bundle of value that is your time, your attention, your availability, your expertise, your speed, your interest, your impact, your dedication, your enthusiasm and your trustworthiness. You can slice those up differently into different packages, as often as you can, for the buyer to choose from.

2. Avoid offshoring what gives you a cultural edge. In previous offshoring events, the jobs that came back had a cultural component that couldn’t be properly delegated. A trust factor remained important from the shared cultural sensibilities, having a shared sense of consequences. Delegate every skill you want, but avoid delegating what makes you relate to those who would pay for your services.

3. Avoid the advice of owners. The owner has all the benefits in an offshoring event. Skills can be delegated, speed standards can be enforced, and the price of work can be reduced. The rewards from risky experiments accrue to the owner. Therefore, if an owner makes a prediction or a proclamation, it’s safe to ignore it. Take your own risks.

4. Avoid risking being replaced. To do this, continue being adept at something of value. Move up the value chain to the decision-maker. Take responsability. Risk doing things that are both scary and aspirational. Experiment with transitioning to the position of an owner in your field.

5. Avoid expecting the masses to act rationally. The company you are at might be run by rational and competent principals, but they won’t get caught having the most expensive labor force among all their competitors. Expect me-too behaviour from those who are in a panic. Expect the fever around new tools and norms to go deeper and longer than expected. Expect people you normally trust to lose some perspective on their decision-making. People will want to make progress in weird directions.

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We could say many more things about our transition to AI, but since all advice is situation-dependent, it’s best to side with inverse advice.

Your edge at nagivating this turbulence will come from your ability to discern. People will come to you for advice, and when they do, you’ll be there to help them make progress.