The 3 AI Use Cases: Gods, Interns, and Cogs
October 22, 2024
It gets confusing! For laypeople, it’s hard to nail down what AI actually does (and doesn’t) do. For those in the field, we often have to break down and overspecify our terms before we can get to our desired conversations.After plenty of discussions and tons of exploration, I think we can simplify the world of AI use cases into three simple, distinct buckets:
- Gods: Super-intelligent, artificial entities that do things autonomously.
- Interns: Supervised copilots that collaborate with experts, focusing on grunt work.
- Cogs: Functions optimized to perform a single task extremely well, usually as part of a pipeline or interface.
Let’s break these down, one by one.
Source: The 3 AI Use Cases: Gods, Interns, and Cogs | Drew Breunig
These are the kinds of discussions I think are most valuable about AI and ML right now, particularly when ti comes to their use. Not the imagine of tech CEOs, or the set appointed linkedin experts, but nuanced consideration, grounded in experience.
I use these tools as interns and cogs, incredibly effectively a lot of the time. The hype is around the gods–speculative nonsense.
Stay grounded. Experiment. Share.