“Intelligence is knowing the right answer, but wisdom is asking the right question.” –Author, Unknown.
I have been thinking a lot about Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) and media since conducting my interview with Diesel Labs founder and CEO Anjali Midha.
Her company assists M&E enterprises in the use of Generative AI and massive data sets to make better decisions about media content. The specifics will vary from client to client, but in general it’s safe to say that a lot of what the company does is to help media companies improve the likelihood that a specific piece of content will resonate with the public.
In one case, that might mean predicting which film is most likely to succeed so a studio knows where to focus its marketing budget. In another instance, it might mean offering insight on which story concept should actually proceed to production.
One day, her company’s Generative AI and massive data set sifting might even help news directors and assignment editors make some news judgments about which stories to pursue—at least in some instances.
Why not all news decisions? Why not every show to be green-lighted? Why not each marketing decision? Simple, there is a difference between intelligence—even artificial intelligence—and wisdom.
The unique quality humans bring to these and the thousands of other decisions that must be made daily in our industry is wisdom, forged in the kiln of life and professional experience, a broader view of the context in which decisions must be made and an understanding that the broader goals of an organization may dictate a particular choice is selected—even if it seems to be the wrong one on a micro level.
To be completely fair, Midha never posited that her company’s service and use of Generative AI should replace people in the M&E industry. Rather, she was quite clear about Diesel Labs’ offering being a tool to make better decisions, not a replacement for deciders.
Why? Because I suspect that bottling the wisdom factor humans bring to life is elusive and will be for the foreseeable future.
