Thoughtful guidance on using LLMs at work. Feel like I’m gonna borrow heavily from this next time I have to write a policy on this.

(While funny, I hate that folks felt the need to make these, obvs)

The band Public Service Broadcasting put those speeches to music in a wonderful concert at the Royal Albert Hall. It’s beautiful and well worth a few minutes of your day

This is absolutely beautiful and very relevant to the times we live in, as Richard points out.

This country has in its hands an instrument of incalculable power for good. An instrument that can be given to spreading among the nation the true knowledge of each other. Helpful rather than hurtful to the interests of mankind.

These newly acquired skills of mankind will move at a breathtaking pace. Broadcasting, which we begin to see now as a worldwide international service, is a step into the future even more dramatic than the devеlopment of flying.

Broadcasting without its responsibilities is nothing. It’s not a way of thought, it’s not a way of culturе, it’s not a way of life. It’s there to serve thought, so that people think for themselves.

It’s there to serve culture in such a way that people will turn more and more to active participation in the arts. Go to the theatre, attend concerts, read books, use their hands. And help to build a community in which broadcasting is only a very small part of a full and satisfying life.

It has helped something living in us to keep alive. And it has reminded us in its graver moments that life won’t last. And that for this very reason, there are things more important than success or power.

Tree growth responds to its environment and integrates with its ecosystem. Growth is sustainable, balancing expansion and repair. It scales in harmony with its context.

Cancer growth is selfish, consuming resources at the expense of its host. Growth is uncontrolled until the system that supports it collapses. It scales through extraction until failure.

When we talk about the growth of technology in the 21st century, which kind of growth do you think best describes it?

“Hey, {social media | AI} grew so big, we all sat together under its canopy and enjoyed the shade.”

Said no one.

More likely: “Hey, {social media | AI} grew so big, it metastasized beyond what society could bear and now look at the mess we’re in.”

Maybe you just hate or don’t get AI

Au contraire! AI can be magical (especially in medical imaging and programming). I used Gemini to update a SQL query recently at the encouragement of a data science peer. I use a product called Granola (not a paid mention, fwiw) for call transcription, notes organization, and pulling up quotes. I work with designers who spin up prototypes with Figma Make that I then test with humans. I work with engineers who use AI for spam mitigation and trust and safety tasks. Jess Holbrook smartly advocated for using AI to take a dissent pass on research artifacts and to challenge yourself and your findings.

What I don’t do is use generative AI or LLMs to spit out an entire research plan, synthesize hours of interviews, or conduct my interviews for me (?!). One reason why I don’t do any of these is that generative AI can’t replace the meaning-making that human researchers do. Why would we even want to use AI to replace the tasks that humans are uniquely good at, or the tasks that humans enjoy, or the tasks that connect us to other humans? To me the personal connection is the best part of being a user researcher or user-centered designer!

This is what gets my goat: AI has many useful applications. This moment in time really is akin to the start of the internet era, in that AI has broken containment and entered mainstream conversation (in no small part due to marketing hype centered on illogical use cases). However, the hype has created acolytes with an ill-fitting solution to the non-existent problem of how to study humans better.