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OpenAI released its public Large Language Model (LLM) in November 2022 known by many as Chatbot GPT. Since its release many students, workers and even companies played around with this generative AI tool to find out what the fuzz is all about and what it is capable of. As it turns out the impact of this AI tool is quite groundbreaking as shown by new research performed by the Boston Consultancy group (Dell’Acqua, F. et al, 2023). 

Their recently published research paper; “Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier: Field Experimental Evidence of the Effects of AI on Knowledge Worker Productivity and Quality” showed the implications AI had on the performance of consultants doing realistic, complex, and knowledge-intensive tasks (Dell’Acqua, F. et al, 2023). 

Their findings were quite substantial and something to keep in mind considering a potential career as a consultant. Their results showed that consultants using Chatbot-GPT 4 outperformed consultants, who did not use the technology, in 18 different realistic consulting tasks (Dell’Acqua, F. et al, 2023). Consultants that use AI were profoundly more productive completing 12.2% more tasks on average. Furthermore, they did it 25.1% quicker, on average, while providing 40% better quality then the control group (Dell’Acqua, F. et al, 2023). 

Their research came up with many interesting findings including that it did not matter whether the participants were new or familiar with Chatbot GPT. Each consultant increased their performance along their measurements. The researchers argue that AI can be a skill leveler. The participating consultants who initially scored the worst at the 18 tasks at the beginning performed 43% better at the end of the experiment. The best scoring group saw an increase of 17% (Dell’Acqua, F. et al, 2023).

According to the paper they identified two types of behaviour which reaped the most benefits when using AI. The so called “centaurs” (yes like the mythical half horse/half-human creature) where those consultants that delegating solution-creation activities based on what they thought AI or themselves were the best at. Then they also identified the so called “cyborg” who were the consultants that fully integrated AI into their work by continuously interacting with the Chatbot-GPT (Dell’Acqua, F. et al, 2023).

As the author of this blog post, in my opinion, I see chatbot GPT like Google search. At the beginning of the internet and Google’s search engine (although I was not even born back then but anyways) There were those who understood it, used it, and reaped the benefits. Those who completely missed the internet age or those who refused to use it eventually lagged behind. Imagine writing a thesis with or without the use of internet. I wish the latter group the best of luck. 

Dell’Acqua, F., McFowland, E., Mollick, E., Lifshitz-Assaf, H., Kellogg, K. C., Rajendran, S., Krayer, L. J., Candelon, F., & Lakhani, K. R. (2023). Navigating the jagged technological frontier: field experimental evidence of the effects of AI on knowledge worker productivity and quality. Social Science Research Network. 

https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4573321

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Although most of us are familiar with Generative AI tools such as Chatbot GPT, other companies such as Adobe are rapidly implementing this technology as well. Recently Adobe released a new tool named “Generative Fill” which utilizes its own proprietaryFirefly AI model to add new capabilities to its already existing known photoshop program. 

This tool allows you to select an area or just to entire picture that you want to photoshop, then a pop-up appears which allows you to enter a description of what you want to add or remove from the selected area. That’s it. The tool is mostly useful for the ones who are new to Adobe photoshop and just want to quickly edit a photo they just made. Before this tool existed, it used to be a relatively large task to remove unwanted objects from a photo requiring quite some skill with Adobe. Whereas right now anyone can select the area and let the generative tool remove or add an object. 

The tool also allows the user to expand the image as seen in the examples provided above. The image in the white box was provided as an existing input and everything outside was generated by Adobe’s proprietaryFirefly AI model. However, as the second image shows, there are still some rough edges which leave room for improvement. 

Sooo, how good is it?

Again, it will certainly do the job for anyone who downloads Adobe’s photoshop program for the first time. The tool allows anyone to quickly edit their fancy new Instagram photo by removing the weird fellow who photobombed their selfie. However, anyone willing to use it for their profession will likely end up still editing a lot themselves after using the tool. Let’s say we wanted to replace the background of an object, the tool will likely distort and blur the edges of your subject as seen in this example below. In this example the background was changed to a beach (Crisara, M, 2023). 

Raw generative AI work:

Further refined image:

In my opinion the added value of this tool will most likely be determined by the case for which you are using it. Any marketing employee of working for Ford cannot take the AI generated background as is for Ford its new marketing campaign of this truck. However, if I were to sell this truck on the second hand market, this image will do just fine on my advertisement.

Crisara, M. (2023, 14 augustus). Adobe’s new ‘Generative Fill’ feature brings AI muscle to Photoshop. Here’s how it works. Popular Mechanics. https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/apps/a44764303/ai-photo-editor-photoshop-generative-fill/#:~:text=How%20It%20Works-,Adobe%27s%20New%20%27Generative%20Fill%27%20Feature%20Brings%20AI%20Muscle%20to%20Photoshop,it%27s%20still%20far%20from%20perfect.&text=Artificial%20intelligence%20is%20no%20longer%20fringe%20technology.