Ever notice how some IT professionals seem to stand out, landing promotions and becoming industry leaders? Their secret might be more than technical skills—it’s writing.

In IT, writing often takes a backseat to coding or troubleshooting, but it’s a powerful tool. First, there’s documentation. Imagine troubleshooting a complex system months after setting it up. Clear, detailed documentation can save you hours and prevent headaches, ensuring that critical knowledge isn’t lost when roles change.

Writing also improves communication. Whether it’s explaining technical issues to non-technical stakeholders or crafting reports, the ability to convey complex ideas in simple terms is invaluable. It enhances collaboration and positions you as a bridge between IT and the rest of the organization. Especially if you can pitch complex IT systems to C-level managers or important customers.

Finally, writing can boost your career. Sharing your expertise through blogs, articles, or social media establishes you as a thought leader, builds your personal brand, and keeps you engaged with industry trends. For example, I might be more interested in hiring a freelancer who has established credibility on social platforms.

In short, writing is a secret weapon in IT. It’s not just about tech skills—it’s about documenting, communicating, and standing out in your career. I’m already convinced (as you can see), and I hope this post will do the same for you.

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J’exagère probablement un peu mais force est de constater que nos petites habitudes ont évolué. Désormais, vous pouvez très facilement entendre un collègue au bureau dire quelque chose du genre “Réunion mardi, ah non, le mardi je peux pas venir au bureau”

Venir au bureau n’est plus une priorité, il est très loin le temps où nous prenions 5 fois par semaine notre joyeux aller-retour banlieue-Paris jusqu’à arriver le vendredi soir sans la moindre force et la moindre envie de sortir ou de profiter d’un doux début de week-end. C’est du passé.

L’humanité va devoir rester à la maison et il n’y aura certainement pas assez de travail pour tout le monde. Ce qui peut être fait depuis la maison sur un laptop pourra être fait par une IA. Alors au début, pour les nouveaux télétravailleurs, la création de contenu sera la norme. Les gens créeront du contenu comme activité principale. C’est déjà le cas pour bon nombre d’entre eux. Les jobs de commodités perdureront bien évidemment : manger, se loger, se soigner mais ces personnes feront partie de la catégorie des consommateurs de contenu, la nouvelle élite sera du côté des créateurs de contenus. Et tout aussi pernicieux, nous avons déjà les créateurs de contenus pour aspirants créateurs de contenus avec le business des vidéos youtube pour vendre des formations.

Il n’y aura plus que les following et les followers. Nos enfants devront choisir leur camp et puis progressivement l’IA des geants de ce monde (reste à savoir de quel côté du Pacifique ils se trouveront) prendra également la main sur la création de contenu. Nous ne serons plus que des followers de la grande machine IA que nos dirigeants politiques auront bien du mal à dompter.

J’en ai fini avec ma prophétie dystopique à la Nostradamus, cependant je me demande si je dois conseiller à mes enfants ou non de créer du contenu digital. Maîtriser une compétence pour obtenir un job IRL me semble tout aussi judicieux. Et vous ?

Vladimir

We will not read all this AI generated content, no, we’ll ask AI to summarize it for us. So you can see the trend. We are already complaining about the Youtube algorithm which decides for us what we can watch and what we cannot. In the near future, we’ll complain about the algorithm inside our phones which will dictate everything we can see, everything we’re allowed to do : for example, the AI of your phone will inform you about some news and hide others, it will suggest restaurants to you regarding your social class, it will hide text messages from this old friend because AI “thinks” it’s not good for you to see him/her again… It’s almost already here, the big tech companies control the world even if Apple is selling confidentiality with its hardware and his new Apple Intelligence.

This post has not been generated by AI

GenAI for video based social media apps is also something critical. You have already seen a video modified using genAI, you can edit a video of Barack Obama and make him say absolutely everything that you want and then post it. It’s becoming harder and harder to identify real videos from fake ones.

We should insist on a label for any content : GenAI vs GenHI. I strongly recommend using this label GenHI for anything totally produced by a Human : GenHI = Generated by Human Intelligence. I think this is crucial to know, it will help us and our kids to distinguish something reel, something produced by the brain of a human being. In my point of view, GenAI can only mimic what GenHI can really do.

Generated by Human Intelligence (genH.I.)

I would love to see the label GenAI or GenHI on any content. I guess we can think about some third party authorities which can approve the label GenHI like an authority can approve a SSL certificate on a https website. We can also have a third party authority which can approve GenAI content by a trusted company and/or people, something to ensure some content is not fake news even if some part of the text or the picture has been generated using AI. The validity of this third party authority could be stored into a blockchain.

I think I should stop writing and work on this idea to build a million dollar company. Just follow my lead and require the labels GenAI or GenHI before consuming any content. This has to come from us, if people refuse to consume content without a trusted label it can prevent us from watching, relaying, reading, listening or learning fake content. Just think about it and thank me later.

Vladimir

#blockchain #AI

An NFT, or Non-Fungible Token, is a unique digital asset that represents ownership or proof of authenticity of a specific item or piece of content, usually on a blockchain. Unlike cryptocurrencies which are fungible and can be exchanged for one another, each NFT is distinct and cannot be exchanged on a like-for-like basis. ChatGPT

A few months ago, my tech feed was full of articles about crypto, blockchain, and NFTs. All of this has been overshadowed by AI. Perhaps it's because I'm no longer interested in NFTs that my tech feed doesn't show me articles about them. I used to think it was the other way around, that my tech feed influenced what I was interested in (algorithm paranoia)… Regardless, the result is the same. No more NFTs on the radar. They were once associated with blockchain, bitcoins, and speculation. However, due to the crypto winter, they are no longer trendy.

I think NFTs were clearly serving the purpose of digital art. If you're a digital artist, how do you sell your work? You can't easily sell a JPG or PDF of your work, as it's super simple for someone to copy your file. In this case, the value of your original JPG is very low. NFTs fixed this because when you own an NFT, you own the original version of the digital file on a blockchain. Well, not exactly. You own only a link. Yes, if you look in detail, the code embedded in an NFT is just a link to a picture hosted in the cloud (mainly on opensea.io, but it could be elsewhere). So, you paid 91 million dollars (the most expensive NFT to date) just for a link. Clearly, in the design of NFTs, it was a big mistake not to embed the code of your JPG file directly in the blockchain. It's not decentralized because you need an external hosting provider to host the picture of your NFT.

crypto art

Your CryptoPunk collection's value dropped from $100,000 to $100, which is a shame. But why did you pay $100,000 for a bunch of pixels? Perhaps you thought their value would increase, or maybe you bought it for tax reasons. The value in art is a debatable topic. If you can pay millions for a Bansky or a Van Gogh, why wouldn't you pay millions for a CryptoPunk collection? In art, I believe you pay for the subjective beauty of the piece, the time spent, the difficulty in creating it, and primarily for the artist's name. The name of the artist is significant, considering what they did before, their history, their message... The CryptoPunks and these new digital artists didn't embody these values. They were clearly there to make money. They weren't designing NFTs for their beauty. They lack history or purpose; they don't convey a message. Maybe their message was just “buy my stuff, you’re stupid and a cupid fool.” I don’t know.

With the new power of AI, you can create thousands of NFT collections using just one prompt; there's even no difficulty or effort behind designing NFTs anymore. Photoshop skills are no longer required. I remember being interested in NFTs 18 months ago and joining a Discord group to buy an NFT. In the main chat of the group, I saw hundreds of NFT transactions. $6,000 for an unknown NFT, and you could sell it for $8,000 a few days later. That was crazy, and it was clearly a gold rush. The bubble was about to burst. Today, I feel sad for you if you still own NFTs (or links to pictures hosted in the cloud). Back to normality, only NFTs from well-known artists retain their value because there is real work behind the artist.

who owns AI?

I think the new problem has shifted to AI and ownership rights of generative AI. With DALL-E powered by OpenAI or MidJourney, it’s easy to generate amazing pictures, some of which could be considered digital art. The skill of the modern artist lies in mastering prompting. I believe art is about how you use the technology available in your era and elevate it to a higher level. With a piece of wood and a chisel, you can create a masterpiece and sculpt an amazing statue. With Photoshop and knowledge of this tool, you can create a beautiful digital picture. Similarly, I think with ChatGPT and a keyboard, you can create a masterpiece and an amazing picture. The raw materials and the skills are just different.

So, who owns the picture generated by AI? I would say the person who entered the prompt. The problem is that generative AI uses tons of information and examples from the internet to generate the picture (the same problem applies to text). So, the owners could be all the sources. Perhaps the owner is the company that hosts and designs the generative AI you are using. Is this similar to a creative commons license (open source)?

There are many questions without answers. Technology is advancing faster than the law, as usual. I envision an NFT version 2 where the code of the picture (jpg, gif, or even short clips) is directly hosted on the blockchain. This new NFT v2 could be generated by AI, and the ownership of the NFT/AI-generated picture would be managed by the blockchain. It's also worth considering a method to confirm whether the picture was generated by AI, perhaps some kind of flag to prove (using the authenticity of the blockchain) that the picture was generated by OpenAI, Midjourney, or others.

this blog post has not been generated by AI

I promise :) This blog post has not been generated using AI. It's just my word. I don't know about you, but for me, that has some value. In a previous article, I predicted that 90% of internet content will be AI-generated. I think we should mention when we produce something using generative AI. Maybe it should just be mentioned at the end of an article. For example, we always know the author of a blog post; maybe the author could be ChatGPT… The same problem arises with ownership: who is the author of something generated by AI? On the other hand, when you use Google to search for information for your next article, you don't mention “Google has been used for this article.” I still use Google Docs to fix errors in my writing and ChatGPT to fix grammar. AI is here to help, not yet to do all the work. Perhaps the limit should be if the content has been fully generated by AI, it should be mentioned, or at least it should be visible if it’s a picture or a video. I know not everyone has the same ethics: they won't mention “fake news” for the “not so true” news published on the Internet.

To return to the topic of NFTs, it was a great idea and it will evolve and remain in the future. The speculation surrounding it is simply over. The concept will endure. The power of the blockchain is to prove the authenticity of a digital file, so there is potential to use it with generative AI to verify the authenticity (or lack thereof) of these new files, whether generated by AI or by a human. If you have a great idea that could change the world, just let me know, and we could change the world together.

Vladimir

#blockchain #crypto #AI

I was really surprised when I read the news about the Apple headset. I read a few lines of the press release and soon I understood. Our days are counted until we have to live with a mask on our face most of the time. I was hoping in secret that it only stays a work in progress project as the Google glasses. It looks like Apple doesn’t joke about this. I’m not sure if I want to live in such a metaverse. After reading the press release, I was thinking : ok, Apple will do it so the followers will follow. Everybody will build a cheaper version of the headset, every software company will create apps for this headset… And soon, we’ll be forced to use these headsets because, dude ! You can’t stop the progress.

Apple has a history of bringing successful new ranges of products to the market : iPod, iPhone, iPad, AirPods, Apple Watch. We know this. Moreover these products came with a full ecosystem and a shop : iTunes then Apple store. They absolutely have the power to influence the market. They are never the first to release these kinds of products but with Apple it always feels like they invented it, the power of great product marketing, great design and easy to use interface.

Even if this new device is not for the masses : 3.5k$ is definitely not for everyone, Apple will set the trend. The oculus headset from Meta was just for gaming. The Vision Pro is for everything, almost the full Apple ecosystem will be available : facetime, imessage, photos, appleTV, notes… With a seamless integration to other Apple devices.

The top feature : no need for additional joysticks or controllers. Everything is controlled with eye-tracking and gestures. This is the “Apple touch”. They are not the 1st to provide a VR headset but they insist on the user interface and the design. The eye tracking tool seems to be magic. You can just select an item on the screen with your eyes. Just look at something and it will be selected, wow! To confirm, just pinch your fingers. As usual, Apple makes it easy to use. The success of the Vision Pro seems inevitable.

who knows what we can do with this

The Vision Pro is an AR/VR headset. What does that mean ?

• AR : augmented reality, so you can see the real world in it + hud (head up display) like in a video game.
• VR : virtual reality : you see only a virtual world in 3D.

The headset has a digital crown (like the Apple watch) for Immersive Environments. You can switch from AR to VR and even choose something in the middle, interesting feature I would like to see in action.

So what can we do with the Vision Pro? For now, our understanding is that we can work with it. You can see 3, 4 or more big screens to boost your productivity 😞. You can watch AppleTV and Disney+ like in a movie theater. You can record video and then replay it and see it in 3D like IRL. You can see the world with augmented reality, you can type on a virtual keyboard but the device is designed to be controlled most of the time by eye tracking and voice. No need to type, it’s for the boomers.

Facetime is also available on the Vision Pro. OK, but guys, how does it work ? How can you see my face if I wear a mask ? In fact, it looks like you will see the faces of the people you call with facetime and they will see an avatar of you. But not an avatar like anime emoji or a cartoon like you. No, they will see a meta human that looks like you. I’m not prepared for this crazy world.

If you have a look at the video from Apple, you’ll understand what they think we can do with it. For now, Apple just wants to show the potential of the device. Like the Apple Watch gen1, it’s just a test. The first Apple Watch had a terrible battery life and few apps. The end users, the developers, the market have designed what we can really do with it and the people have confirmed what they really want to do with it. I think it’s the same for the Vision Pro. The basics are there from Apple (photo, notes, mail, etc) but we are not prepared for what crazy dev and designers can create for it.

Let's think about it. Maybe they can build a Tetris game controlled only by the eyes or a FPS game. We can imagine a shooting game and you control the target with your eyes and you shoot with your fingers. Maybe a 3D modeling software can be relevant using a headset. In fact, all the crazy ideas are already there, at least in the mind of the entrepreneurs. It looks like Apple will bring quality compared to existing headsets. If you ever tried the Oculus headset from Meta, you may think it’s ok for gaming but not great to read text as the resolution of the screens (one for each eye) are not so good.

My advice, hire a dev to create the next flappy bird like for the Vision Pro and become a millionaire.

a device for your grandmother

I think Apple is ready to set the trend. The quality and the design will help the end users to want to use it. People buy 600$ Apple audio headsets after all, so why not buy several high quality screens, a macbook, a magic keyboard and mouse in one device. In the end the cost is reasonable compared to the cost of these devices. Apple is clear about the Vision Pro : this is the next computer, a “spatial computer”. Your grandmother will use only this device to browse the Internet, it will be even easier than using her lovely iPad. You can be sure that every tech giant has a Vision pro like product in R&D right now.

We are so connected, the average screen time in the world is 7h per day. I guess this is the main activity for humans in 2023. Where are we going ? The vision pro is the last step before transhumanism. After this, Elon Musk will insert a chipset in everybody’s brain => Neuralink. Please have a look at the Neuralink website and get freaked out. For now, Apple is just selling a mask and I’m pretty sure it will be designed to be as addictive as possible. This is the main reason I think this product will succeed, the fanboys will be amazed, the normal people will follow the trend. Some applications will be available only using this kind of device (or it will be too difficult to do it with an old school laptop). Everybody else will be addicted to these new range of products to buy.

the world is changing faster and faster

Lets see the positive things : sorry but I can’t find positive things about it quickly. Not that easy to find really useful use cases for a VR headset, immersion maybe or we can work from home. No need to brush your hair, behind the mask your avatar will always be young and pretty. Maybe our future will be to stay at home all the time and interact with people only in the digital world. Transhumanism will be the new standard to stay competitive against AI or just to understand it, we will be super productive. AI will guide us from birth to death, and the demographic will be controlled by the government which will be also controlled by AI. Sorry I’m writing a sci-fi movie. As always, if we can dream it, we can do it, so who knows what the world will look like in a century.

Vladimir

#VR #metaverse #productivity #AI

spoiler : it won't be so difficult !

google sites + google domains

There are plenty of hosting providers, website builders, VPS and so on, it’s not simple to choose. As you want to invest in your new product, you’re not sure if you have to invest in a hosting provider for now. To start small (cheap), I suggest using your Google account. You already have one (is it possible to live without one ?). With Google, for personal use or small business, everything is free… That’s not totally true, you pay by giving up your data to the G in GAFA.

You just have to visit sites.google.com, choose a template and create your website as you’re creating powerpoint slides : select, click, drag and drop.

The content of the website is stored in your google drive, with your free google account, you have 15 Gb as a gift and that’s enough to host the best website in the world.

yourname.me

I recommend paying for only one thing : the domain name. Using the power of your single google account, you can access to : google domains ! (Not available in every country 🙈).

It’s important to buy a domain name, it’s your address in this lucrative virtual world called “The Internet” (and soon the metaverse). So you need that space to be visible.

You can buy yourname.com or yourname.me or yourname and the extension of your country, just to be sure no one else will buy it. From 12 to 20€ per year, you can afford it. Don’t overthink about the domain name : is it simple to type, does it seem professional ? Just pick the name of your product or your own name if you go into freelance mode. If you want to run a business, you’ll have to make decisions, start with this one, choose wisely.

There are also plenty of domain names providers (or registars). Google Domains is not the best but the interface is clear enough in my point of view. You won’t have to change your domain names settings very often so let's use one provider which is easy. You don’t have to create another account that you could forget. It’s also super easy to use with google sites.

@root$> No need for any line of code

Just go to sites.google.com and start creating a wonderful website. This is where the magic happens. You just have to select a template (or blank page) to build your website. It’s an easy to use GUI. You can use any content (photo, docs, google slides) from your google drive. You can embed video from any youtube channel, add links to your social media accounts. It’s not that fancy but all the basics are there. You can preview your website from a mobile, tablet or laptop userview. You can add a banner with a CTA (click to action). You can also find some creative templates on the web if you need something more specific.

just publish it

When your site is ready, just click on publish. The config of the custom domain is really easy using google Domains. In fact, it's fully automated, no need to configure any DNS records : 🤯

The extension .com is 12$ per year so 1$ per month, this is the cost to exist on the net, that’s cheap but not free.

Follow the step by step guide below and if you have any trouble, please let me know by email or on linkedin, I'll be happy to help. Don't miss the article below to configure other features to your google site such as google anylitics.

➡️ configure cool features for your google site

Vladimir

#entrepreneurship #branding #tutorials

custom emails are cool

Yes, emails are not dead, yes, you should have a custom email address to look like a professional service provider. As mentioned in the previous article, you can use just your google account, a personal one and pay as little as 1$ per month. So you have your gmail account, something like yourname@gmail.com. That’s OK but it’s better to have something like contact@yourbusiness.com. You can easily ask google to add this alias for you. It’s super easy to configure email forwarding in google domains. It’s a little bit more tricky to configure the “send as” in your gmail account. Please have a look on the slides below for more details.

analytics dashboards are also cool

It’s great to have a website to showcase your skills or to inform your customers about your product. It’s better to know who is viewing your site. With the power of your google account, you can unlock precious knowledge. And again it’s free… I mean it’s free if you agree to sell your data to the guys who don’t want to be evil. Fair to me.

Google Analytics is a platform that helps you to “get customer insights”. It works by adding a small tracker in your website which will gather data about the viewers : date, browser, origin country. Another interesting info is about the traffic source: do your customers click on your link from social media, from google search or do they know the exact URL ? You can add the analytics tracker from any website, it’s not restricted to google sites.

It’s mainly a marketing platform, to measure the ROI of your marketing ads but it’s still interesting to see the number of views : from a mobile and from a laptop. The countries, day and time… Super easy to configure and to use so why not ?

quick tips and more to come

If you need a cool website for 1$ per month, maybe you’re in the process of building an empire. I mean you’re starting a new service or new products and you need to be visible on the Internet. To grow your business, you may need time and money. This is the purpose of this quick tutorial. You can configure your google website, custom DNS, email, analytics in one hour. It’s fast and cheap, it’s not quick and dirty, it’s clean, and google sites look professional. See the inspiring sites here https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/google-sites-examples

Another quick tip is to enable the search reports in google domains. You will have similar data to G Analytics but in a summary view. There is also in the same section a tool to measure your page speed. Other interesting information about optimization, for example it recommends the file format of your pictures to improve page loading.

I suggest also creating a custom weekly google search alert on your brand, just to know what the Internet is saying about you Google Alerts.

Don’t forget to search the current trends in your field. As mentioned before, with just one google account, you have access to so many resources. Go to google trends and check what the Internet is talking about right now : here.

Next time, we’ll see how to finish the setup of “get online with google”. Google search and google map visibility then we’ll dip a toe in the google Ads ocean. In the meantime, please have a look on the tutorial below and feel free to reach out to me by email or on linkedin, I'll be hapy to discuss your new project.

➡️ how to create a google site

Vladimir

#entrepreneurship #branding #tutorials

Their motto sounds great, better than SkyNet I would say. Yes, when we talk about AI, we often think about Sci-Fi movies like Terminator or i-Robot. I think that’s why OpenAI is trying to provide AI as a benefit for everybody. AI should not be feared, AI is something great, something that will help us, it’s the next phase for humanity… Or is it something that will take all our jobs, control all our lives and reduce our creativity.

I don’t know so many AI companies but I guess you can find a ton of them. These days, we all heard about OpenAI. A company founded in the silicon valley, one member is the very famous Elon Musk (him again), even if I don’t think he’s really active in the decisions, he still earns money from it. Sam Altman is the CEO and he represents the company. They have this “opensource” mindset and their AI products can be tested for free with some limitations. They are on a mission : OpenAI Charter.

We can trust their commitment but their investors put a lot of money in the company and at some point, they will have to make money, a lot of money. Even bots have to eat.

The strategy seems simple and efficient. They have great AI tools, they publish API for third party apps to use and you’re charged for using it in your own app. For example, you have a chatbot on your website and the backend of your chatbot is using the API of openAI to discuss with your customers and find solutions to their problems. This sales strategy can work if the tools behind the API are really powerful. This year, the organization expects $200 million in revenue. Next year the forecast is $1 billion. The company may be worth $29 billion… How is it possible ? This is due to the hype around AI and the latest buzz word on the Internet : ChatGPT.

chatGPT

It’s not often that you have the feeling of being in the future when testing something. ChatGPT is one of these tools/products. Don’t even finish reading this blog post and go test it before the free trial is over => https://chat.openai.com/

hi chatGPT, please describe yourself because I'm too lazy to do it

I am ChatGPT, a large language model trained by OpenAI. I can understand and respond to natural language inputs, and can be used for a wide variety of tasks such as answering questions, generating text, and more. My knowledge cutoff is 2021, so I may not have the most up-to-date information. Is there anything else you would like to know?

Ok, you’re back ? Impressive isn’t it ? So now, you have a super buddy who knows everything until 2021. You can ask him to write your book, your blog posts or any written content. You can discuss with your super buddy to learn new things to go deeper in the details of any subject. ChatGPT can write source code of complex app, you can copy/paste your code and ask him what’s wrong with your code. What is really impressive is the conversation, you can really discuss with this thing and it will keep the context of what you’ve discussed earlier together. With ChatGPT we’re already in the future, the future of AI.

The possibility of the ChatGPT API seems to be endless. Mainly we think about ChatBot and virtual assistants. The next step will be to add voice to it so you’ll be able to ask him (or it, not sure) using your voice only. Probably some companies will plug this to their smartphone assistant because Today Siri and Google seem so limited compared to ChatGPT. I’m sure we’ll be able to customize his name and you’ll have your own Jarvis like Tony Stark.

Let’s go on the steps after this. We could probably grant access to ChatGPT to our digital life. It would be able to make phone calls for us as Google explained with Lamda in their last event. In the near future I would be able to plug the ChatGPT API to my smartphone and to this blog and I would just have to say : hey ChatGPT publish a blog post about fishing, please add a generated picture on the same topic. Voilà ! The content creators would become useless, just ask a bot to do it. Articles from famous journals could be generated, music and lyrics could be generated, even Art could be generated by AI. On top of fake news, we’ll have fake content or non-human generated content : synthetic content will flood on the Internet with these tools; Just my 2 cents.

We can already find a lot of tools around automation, some tools already have chatGPT plugins to add in your automated workflow. You can use variables from a customer form and chatGPT will reply by a nice email, you can enter in your Notions list an idea for a new Youtube video and chatGPT can generate the title, the full text and even the thumbnail.

how do you work ?

How does it work ? It’s based on machine learning, neural networks and… Let’s just ask to chatGPT, I’m in the future, I’m too lazy to search and write it myself :

how do you work ?

I work using a state-of-the-art deep learning technique called Transformer-based architecture. My training data consists of a large corpus of text, which allows me to generate responses that are similar in style and content to the text I was trained on. When you input a question or prompt, I use my internal model to generate a probability distribution over the possible outputs, and then I select the most likely response based on that distribution. I use this process to generate coherent and contextually relevant responses to a wide variety of inputs.

What is important here : “I was trained on”. First, chatGPT says “I” like it was conscious of itself. More importantly, it was trained on. So they gathered documents, books, internet websites or any content prior to 2021 and everything was labeled. With these labels on documents, chatGPT is able to understand what it is and it can use a big algorithm to provide answers to our question based on matching and probabilities. OpenAI said chatGPT is not perfect, there are some errors. You can find many threads on the Internet about funny wrong replies from chatGPT.

I’ve heard the training of chatGPT was done mainly in Kenya with people far below the minimum salary. For sure, ChatGPT is not perfect. The question about the content rights will arise. Who will own the content rights on what chatGPT will produce ? Is there an issue with the content rights used by chatGPT to produce the new content ? Maybe we should create AI to protect AI rights.

dall.E

Another impressive tool from OpenAI is Dall.E, what is it ? Just ask to chatGPT, this thing is here to help me in the modern world.

what is dall.E ?

DALL-E is a 12-billion parameter version of the GPT-3 model, also developed by OpenAI. Like GPT-3, DALL-E is a state-of-the-art language model that can generate high-quality text, but DALL-E is unique in that it can also generate images from textual descriptions. For example, given a textual prompt such as “a three-legged dog playing a banjo,” DALL-E can generate a corresponding image of such a scene. This ability to generate images from text makes DALL-E a powerful tool for creative applications, such as generating illustrations, product designs, and more.

Another interesting article for the French speaking people to understand how it works.

Like other OpenAI tools, you can test Dall-E for free : https://labs.openai.com/. You can generate 50 pictures using keywords or long sentences then you have to buy credits.

Let’s play with Dall-E. Just enter the following sentence and see the result :

A blog post from vladimir. He is explaining what openAI and chatGPT are. Vladimir is so an amazing guy, what a brilliant mind ;)

output from Dall.E ⬇️

Pretty accurate isn’it ? With other AI tools designed to generate pictures, you can also enter a picture as input, your picture will be used as a baseline to generate another one. The next step will be to generate video. It’s already possible but it will be mainstream in a few months/years. As explained previously, synthetic content (music, video clips, articles) will flood on the Internet very soon. The GAFAM will soon be number one in the music chart, the best AI will be approved by the masses. I’m not so excited about this.

Lot of content creators will also use AI to generate text, pictures, videos and I’m pretty sure youtube will be full of this soon. We can also think about video games. The dev team will work to create the engine and the story, the levels, the characters design could be generated by AI and you can have a different flavor of the same game each time you play it. It seems even netflix has used AI to generate anime serie.

codex

These guys in the silicon valley think also about the concept of the digital workforce. For example, you want to build a web application, you can hire two developers and a bot. The bot has his own account and his own virtual machine and it contributes to the source code. We’re only at the beginning but an hybrid work force is a mix of human and bot, a powerful team, as explained by the salesman.

In the other way we can also ask a developer to become a super developer : a dev with his super buddy should be able to achieve more in less time. The productivity will increase and you can hire less people to do the job. We already have GitHub CoPilot powered by OpenAI Codex. I don’t think we’ll get rid of all developers but instead we’ll have super developers. Is it good or bad ? It's another question.

Let’s try to go further, if your virtual coworker or bot has its own virtual machine and its virtual account to the platform, it can also be able to deploy your source code or fix some problems. It can do the maintenance as any Ops Engineer. I think that I can try to create an IT company with virtual developers and virtual Ops Engineers using ChatGPT API, a virtual DevOps team able to code and deploy webapps to my customers… What do you think ? It’s even better than the “no code” concept. I may need virtual sales bots because I’m not good at selling services but an AI DevOps team seems interesting. I could control an army of devops bots to manage and support a big infrastructure and compete with tech giants.

I think that we will not lose our jobs but probably our jobs will evolve. As things get faster and faster, we don’t know the name and the concept of the job that our kids will do, we have no idea.

Whoever reaches a breakthrough in developing artificial intelligence will come to dominate the world. Vladimir Poutine

Sorry for the quote but that is so true, last year I was impressed by Lamda and MuM from Google but Today openAI seems to be on top of the competition. Google is expected to announce their own chatGPT very soon, let’s see if they can create something better. Amazon seems to give up as the Alexa brand is about to be discontinued.

azure openAI

For Microsoft, the problem is different. They don’t need to compete against OpenAI, they can just buy it. They have already invested in it at the beginning ($1 Billion). I’ve heard, this year they want to bring $10 billion on the table… OK. In the meantime they have lay-off 10 000 employees. Do you see a link between these two facts ? The same trend for Google, Amazon, Twitter, Meta : fire people and invest in AI.

That does not sound very good

They say it’s not linked and that is a post pandemic effect. Why not ? It’s known that Amazon is using AI to evaluate low productive employees and fire them. In HR, a lot of things are automated, the onboarding process, check references, I guess next time I’ll search for a new job, my résumé will be checked by an AI bot and probably I’ll have to be interviewed by chatGPT or a variation of it.

This is exactly what Microsoft is trying to achieve with Azure OpenAI. You can build your own AI API i.e. your own AI tool, with your own data and your own infrastructure (at least the infrastructure powered by Microsoft Azure) instead of relying on the public chatGPT API.

So what’s next ? Who knows ? I guess that probably we even don’t know the job of our kids yet. Maybe we’ll just do some boring tasks such as labeling data for training the latest AI. I think this is already what we are doing using hashtags everywhere on social media. Maybe an AI will be able to scan everything about us from Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta and this big AI will know everything about us and we won’t have to think anymore, just click and buy.

I’m working from home behind a computer so everything I produce can be generated by an AI so probably my job will be different in a few years. What could be my added value if everything that I think can be synthetic ? Maybe my opinion has some value in a democratic world but I'm not sure if it’s good for the business. A philosophical debate.

We still have time to use AI as a benefit for humanity, as OpenAI would like to sell it to us. We have to learn to understand it correctly and not let some big companies decide for us what will be the future of AI. Because AI will be at the top of all the decisions we will take : what to eat, what to do this weekend, where to go next summer, what to watch on TV Tonight, what job is good for me, how many kids should I have (who knows ?), even some political decisions would be made using the help of AI using financial parameters for example. For now, AI hasn't reached technological singularity yet. Let’s be prepared before it happens and use our new super buddy to achieve more and reach our goals (dreams) faster.

vladimir

#AI #productivity

In this era of hybrid work, remote work, work from anywhere, digital nomad, work from home, quiet quitting, 4 days week or any new work trend, it looks like we’re seeking for better work life balance. Great, how to work smarter, stay productive and save time for everything else other than work ?

I’m not a researcher so I can’t explain to you what is the fresh start effect. There are plenty of articles about it. We all know the concept : the motivation is higher at the beginning of a new cycle, at least we are more willing to set goals for new beginnings. Many companies use this to boost not their motivation but their sales : diet consultation, learning courses, new outfits, gym club offers… Why not use this ‘fresh start effect’ to gain new habits in our (not so) well balanced work/personal lives and try to keep them all year long. It sounds obvious but why do we fail every year ?

habits

Instead of changing everything at once, I do prefer to take small steps. I want to workout every morning so I’ve started with 10 push-ups daily then the week after I’ve added more push-ups and new moves progressively. Same for reading, I’ve started with a goal of 5 pages every night before sleeping. How difficult is it to stick with such a minimalist goal ? It’s easy. The idea is to use the fresh start effect to start small steps but in the right direction. It takes time but the long term value seems higher to me and it’s easier to stick with these new habits. Without noticing, with little effort (at least at the beginning), I’ve gained new great habits. Then it’s not so difficult either to go from there to 15 and 10 because I took the habit to do 10 and 5 effortlessly.

So I set my big goals, even my crazy dreams and I write them, then I take small steps in this direction. Never skip, If I don’t have time or if I’m tired, I reduce it. Instead of 10 push ups, I do just one. Really, never skip. My habits have become needs.

I’ve read a lot of self help books, some of them were really good, some others could be reduced to 3 pages, any way, at least, I can always keep one concept of every one of them. I don’t pretend to provide productivity tips, it’s just what works for me. If it could inspire you, I would be happy.

time

Resources in the world are unlimited. There is enough money in the world, there are plenty of opportunities, there are so many people to meet, there is an unlimited amount of books to read. I don’t say oil and water are unlimited in the world, I mean the potential number of things I can do is unlimited but not my time. I have to choose.

... choisir, c'était renoncer pour toujours, pour jamais, à tout le reste et la quantité nombreuse de ce reste demeurait préférable à n'importe quelle unité. André Gide

I just accept that I won’t see and I won’t do everything I can do, so I try to choose the best things. Then I book some time in my calendar to be sure I’ll have enough time to do what I choose to do. It’s very important for me to block several time slots in advance. If I want to work on a side project, I block 4 hours per week. Even for day to day life, I have a time slot every Saturday afternoon to do activities with my kids. Another time slot for training, for writing and for free time. It helps me to visualize what I have to do and see if something new can be added or if I have to choose to cancel something else due to lack of time.

I also schedule some of these time slots as recurring. As explained before, it’s easier to do something when it’s a habit. For example, every Tuesday evening for an hour, I review my financial status : bank accounts, expenses, incomes, savings. I don’t like to do this but now it’s easier to spend one hour per week as I know when I’ll do it, I can think in advance about it and be prepared. It works also for daily tasks but I prefer to have weekly cycles. It works for me to manage recurring tasks like this and I keep free time for the unexpected ones. It's obvious and it does work, do you really do it ?

I try to do tasks one by one. Multitasking is bad. That’s why I plan time in my calendar in advance, keep one hour to work on this project and don’t be distracted by something else. At work, I’ve DISABLED ALL THE NOTIFICATIONS except for the meeting, not cool to be late and disrespect the attendees. Just think about it, notifications are here to distract you from the important task you are currently working on, that’s it. What is so urgent that requires you to take immediate action ? Notifications keep me in a constant mood of emergency, my mind is never relaxed, I multitask and don’t spend focused time on important tasks. Notifications are the new evil 👺

I have some crazy dreams that require time to achieve. I end up with not enough space in my calendar. Again I had to choose. I’ve progressively stopped (reminder : small steps) wasting my time with modern entertainment. I don’t have a TV at home, I’ve removed social media apps and news apps from my smartphone, I’ve canceled my Netflix subscription and I’m more than happy about this. I don’t say my screen time is low but I don’t waste it with cat videos or binge watching. I don’t want to fill my free time with scrolling on social media… No ! I’ve downloaded the kindle app and I read books on my smartphone. Just try it, if you don’t want to pay (but why not ?), this app is free and there are thousands of free books such as must read classics.

I also keep 5 to 10 minutes per day to DO NOTHING. I've tried meditation but I may not be ready for this now. At least, I try to do nothing for several minutes several times per day. Do you remember the last time you were absolutely doing nothing ? I think it’s better to do it at the end of the day, as I’m working from home most of the time, this break is the temporal landmark between work day and personal life for me. I receive too much information per day, when I do nothing, it’s the perfect time to absorb it correctly, to relax and to think about my main goals. It’s my secret weapon to stay so calm and cool.

health

To stay productive, it’s one point to manage your time but you also need to be in good shape. Every CEOs in the world is telling the same thing to stay productive : workout every morning and read books as much as possible. These guys might have a busy schedule but they still have enough time to read 50 to 60 books per year. One per week, it seems achievable.

Regarding health, of course it’s important to take care of yourself. As explained before, I try to gain new habits and workout progressively. The morning seems easier to me because at the end of the day when I’m tired, motivation to go to the gym is low. During evenings, I prefer to do team sports. I like to go and socialize with the team. Team spirit gives me more motivation. When I skip one training session, the guys remind me to not do it again, it’s some help for my motivation.

Another trick that works for me is to go to sleep early. I’ve tried to be a member of the 5am club but it was really too hard. I just keep the main concept. Instead of wasting 2 hours of your time in the evening on social media, youtube or any useless activity, I prefer to sleep and wake up early for using these 2 hours for a side project, work on personal tasks or writing when my mind is fresh.

I try to keep as much as possible 8 hours per night, it’s easier for me to be less tired and more relaxed with good sleeping. Life has unexpected things for us, sometimes I have to stay up late. In this case, I keep waking up early and I use this beautiful concept : the nap. It’s easier as I am working from home. I take a nap almost everyday, not more than 20 minutes, after lunch and I’m ready to tackle the rest of the day.

As most of us, I look at what I eat. I’ve read the 4 hour body. Not as good as the 4 hour work week, still a bestseller. I like the concept of eating, as much as possible, vegetables during the week and on Saturdays eat what you want as much as you want and go crazy. Tim Ferriss has provided tons of statistics to prove that it still helps to lose weight and also that it’s better for the body. It's a great concept, be strict and eat less during the week and on Saturdays (or Sundays if you prefer) eat what you were frustrated to not eat during the week.

I also do intermittent fasting. Again, if you don’t know what it is, read this book or any other book about intermittent fasting. I’m convinced about the benefits for my health and that it keeps me in good shape. Only black coffee and tea in the mornings (no sugar), except on Saturdays (read just above).

journaling

To find the perfect work life balance and stay productive, you have to manage your time, stay healthy and… write your thoughts in a journal (the subtitle has helped). There are many benefits of journaling. Organize your thoughts for more clarity and clear your mind of these thoughts. As I write, it helps me to find solutions. Mainly, I also like to see the trend of my progress. I mean in my journal, I write the progress of my small steps to gain new habits. You can use an Excel spreadsheet if you prefer. The idea behind journaling is to track your progress, your mood, you can see the trend and by the way where it seems you’re headed to. You can then adjust. It’s the same process as these guys who track their body statistics (heart rate, sleeping, weight…). Same idea but with journaling you track your thoughts and your life, it seems more appealing to me.

I would recommend anybody to do this, you can even start with one word to describe your mood of the day. I don’t think it has to be done everyday, again, doing this on a weekly basis is fine for me. No need to share everything to the world, just gather the best parts and post it on social media or in a blog as I do. Read this book => show your work.

When you do one small step, you don’t go so far. When you’re consistent and take small steps everyday consistently you go far away. Of course, it could take time. That’s why it’s important to track your progress, I do it by journaling but you can use anything else. I track my progress to be sure to improve a little bit more every week and when I feel it, I take big steps.

do you feel the fresh start effect ?

In one sentence, I use the motivation of this new year to make new habits, I start small but I stick to them. It has worked for me for several years so I keep this method, I still have many things to improve. These days, I read this book about mindset, it reminds me that everything that I want is outside my comfort zone and only hard work can lead me to it. The goal is the journey not the end : the efforts to progress.

When the fresh start effect will fade away because it will, I'll use the reminder below. I found it on Twitter months ago. I copy/paste it and I don’t share the twitter link because we all know that twitter will die soon 🐦

Tired —> Nap Sad —> Music Stressed —> Walk Angry —> Exercise Burnt out —> Read Feeling lost —> Pray Overthinking —> Write Anxious —> Meditate

vladimir

#productivity #mindset

The only good thing about this pandemic, it’s WFH. Of course, it’s only in my point of view, depending on your company, your work, your daily habits at home… WFH could be the worst thing of the last 2 years. Mainly, I work on a computer all day, I have to speak with people, send emails and ensure the information system of my company is running well. At work, I have no action in the physical world. The only real system I have to touch is the coffee machine. The life of an IT specialist is in the clouds.

Of course, if your work consists of making hair cuts, you can’t do it from your home. You have to go to the hairstyling salon. Or maybe not, I heard that several hairdressers have decided to work as freelancers and they make hair-cuts at people’s homes. You just have to schedule an appointment and the freelance hairdresser comes to your home with the equipment required and cuts your hair as you wish. I should create a start-up for this, make all the processes more convenient, include a mobile app with geolocalisation, automate the payment and call this : ub-hair :–)

work 5 days, get one free

I think this is interesting, every change is an opportunity, like for the freelance hairdresser. For me, the opportunity was to save my commute time. As said previously, one hour in the morning, one in the evening, 5 times per week = 10 free hours per week : a full day ! So I ‘ve decided to keep this new day in a week just for me. I rearranged my schedule to wake up a little bit early to be able to do 10min of workout, take care of my kids and go to school with them. As I’m working from home, now I can do this everyday and this is the first win of WFH. I booked 2 hours per day in my professional calendar to work on my side hustle : a micro company or micro entrepreneurship as IT consultant : https://guillouais.fr

I’ve reached out to my contacts just to say : hey I’m available if you need. Of course at the beginning I’ve made a lot of mistakes, I keep making mistakes but I trust the process and I’m confident that I’ll improve. Consultancy is not the ultimate goal, in my point of view. I would like to keep this activity and maybe one day I would be able to leave (not live) the life of an employee. I’m still thinking about finding a money tree. I’ve found this concept in the book Millionaire fastlane by MJ DeMarco. The idea is simple: using the right process and the right mechanisms, you can build an automated business which is making money by itself : a money tree.

It’s only my personal opinion about WFH. I’m sure everybody has a different approach and thoughts about it but I’m still seeing change as an opportunity to grow.

“Change is never painful, only the resistance to change is painful.”

Buddha

I’m working for a big firm, a huge company. As it looks like we are seeing the end of the pandemic, I’ve received an email in my professional mailbox : “back to new normal”. What does it mean ? To be clear, it’s just to say : hey guys, you have been working from home for 2 years now. We have reduced the office capacity by 30 %. There is less desk than before, so you can stay at home for 2 or 3 days per week, depending on the management style of your boss. It will be cool for you and we’ll save a lot of money because office buildings are expensive. By the way, we’ll also save CO2 : deal ? The email content was full of keywords like : WFH, smart working, flex, hybrid, life/work balance… bla bla bla.

the new normal

The new normal seems to be a hybrid between home and office. How many days per week ? Can we stay at home forever, can we go back to the office 5 days per week ? Nobody knows. It will take time to legiferate, to change people's contracts and to find some agreements. Can we work from another country, do we have to be available on a specific time zone, can we become digital nomads and work from a foreign country for 6 months before moving to the next one ?

It’s more or less like a new bonus for the employees. Companies in the silicon valley which don’t offer WFH are far less attractive for the new talents. The drawback is these attractive companies can hire people in other countries, with a very low salary compared to yours. We’ve already seen in the past this globalization in IT then a re-localization when the business realized it didn’t go well or when the business complains the support is not efficient enough with these remote employees.

I think this time, it’s quite different. We are not talking about opening a new office in India or in Poland. We are talking about building a team with several people from several countries. The big companies will be able to select talents from everywhere in the world at different daily rates in terms of salary. The competition between IT engineers will be based on salary and skills (as Today) but also on : languages and timezones.

the new deam team is spread around the globe

And it’s already happening, my current team members are from Switzerland, Germany, Tunisia, Poland, Netherlands and France. We are working as one team, on the same projects, at the same time. Everyone is working from home and so far it goes well. We are still in a learning phase, we are learning how to be flexible for our customers, depending on the budget, the language and the timezone. We try to find someone in the team who will be able to provide the right support for the business. The cultural approach is also important, the customer could potentially have a better relationship with someone who has a similar culture.

In my point of view, the way of working will be more and more dependent on the company than the country where the employees live. I love the remote policy from this CEO : just do whatever you want, if your job is done ! Dan Price is also known for raising the minimum salary for all his employees to 70k. A great way to attract talents.

We asked our employees where they want to work:
7% want to go to the office full time
31% want an office-remote hybrid
62% want to work only from home

So I told them: sounds great. Do whatever you want. As a CEO, what do I care? If you get your work done, that's all that matters

— Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) March 15, 2022

I don’t think we will be all replaced by talents from low cost countries but probably this competition will lower the average salary we can expect. It’s difficult to say. The world is changing very fast, the recent war in Ukraine has also changed the face of the world. Climate change pushes for new projects around carbon footprint reduction. We may have to use our cars less and less (another point in favor of WFH). We’ll still have to go to the office, mainly for onboarding, for yearly/quarterly team meetings but not that often.

As said for our hairdresser who became a freelancer, change is an opportunity, if you can see it. It’s really a time for innovation, for testing new things and trying to find solutions. Technology is the new heart of the world and synonym of progress. Is it the right move to invest again in the same model as before ? I don’t think so, or not exactly. Do we have to go all in for degrowth… Not so sure either. I guess that we have to find something else, and for me that sounds thrilling.

Vladimir

Discuss...

#entrepreneurship