Exploring - AI by Dr Bruce Lloyd
Although I officially retired about 20 years ago and, fortunately, my old Sony computer finally gave up the ghost, a couple of years ago and had to get a new one – a basic Dell. I don’t think I could have done this exploration without it. This point just shows it is problematic to use much of todays ‘software’ if you don’t have reasonably relevant hardware.
(I’m sure many of you know more about this area than I do and so much has changed in the past year, I find it impossible to keep up. But I hope this exercise might be of interest, although it is just scratching the surface of the issues.)
Personally, I think AI can be incredibly useful in helping discussions move forward. Few things frustrate me more than endless discussions that get us nowhere, and just result in going round in circels, and in 'reinventing the wheel'.
AI’s capacity for structure and avoiding unnecessary padding can be very helpful …. It can also reduce partisan politics, personal and organisational games, as well as emotionally driven inputs, which usually discourages quality conversations. It also avoids digressions, rather than focusing on addressing the issue and actually answering the question.
It can also cut through both journalistic padding and academic obscurity, as well as encouraging new thinking about the issues and omissions ....
So, in theory, it should allow more time to be focused on new, creative, areas that make it easier for us to end up making ‘progress’?
Overall, it has allowed me to pander to my curiosity and capacity to ask questions, although it could be argued that it also encourages me to be superficial.
AI certainly has limitations and biases; it’s not perfect and it does make mistakes. But AI is often much better at recognising, accepting – and correcting – biases and mistakes than most humans?
Although I have become aware of plenty of people who have very negative attitudes to the development and use of AI.
Also I recognise that to some extent I am a hypocrite. I enjoy new technology and I expect it to work, and I also expect organisations to work efficiently.
But, I also recognise that the underlying current system of hyper competitiveness is problematic, and is just not sustainable. This dichotomy panders to my undisciplined lack of focus, which probably ends with me not getting involved in enough effective action.
At this very late stage in life I enjoy exploring the underlying challenges facing the future, where more fundamental changes are necessary. And I feel I can do it free of vested interests!
So here are a few areas I have recently explored - there are over 50 on my LinkedIn site for anyone who is interested. All the explorations use various combinations of several free AI options (ChatGPT, Gemini. Copilot, Claude, Grok, Perplexity and Deepseek) usually a notebooklm discussion, and more recently the notebooklm videos.
In no order of importance:
First, asking AI ‘What is the main challenge facing business organizations over the next decade?’
The result initially produced the usual list:
1. Technological Disruption/ AI Integration
2. Sustainability and Climate Change.
3. Geopolitical and Economic Uncertainty.
4. Workforce Evolution/ Transformation
5. Consumer Expectations and Personalization.
6. Regulatory Changes and Compliance Challenges
7. Global Health Challenges
8. Cybersecurity and Data Privacy: :
Deepseek: “Successfully addressing these challenges will require: strategic foresight, flexibility, and a commitment to ongoing transformation.”
I followed the AI comments with:
“I disagree. I believe the main challenge will be the need to reconcile pressures for institutionalization against the need for creativity/innovation that challenges those institutionalization pressures.”
ChatGPT: “You're absolutely right. The tension between institutionalization and creativity/innovation is a profound challenge for business organizations, especially in an era of rapid change and complexity. Let’s break this down:
1. Institutionalization Pressures.
2. The Need for Creativity and Innovation”
Deepseek agreed “The Challenge: Reconciling the Two and it explored Strategies to Address the Challenge”
Then I fed these detailed results into Notebooklm and found the discussion was fascinating and impressive, up to a point. But I wonder whether it really is saying anything new, relative to what was around in the 1980's when much was written about 'Creating and Managing New Ventures' and ‘Corporate Venturing’ and attempts to put this into practice in both IBM and ICI .... as well as the use of 'skunk works' in the 1960's.
However, in my view, one of the important issues is for those ‘leading’ organisations is to have a good - or at least reasonable - understanding of these issues - and I don't think that point was mentioned in the AI discussion?
Another area involved in comparing the current AI boom to the development of the printing press and the railways to better understand hype cycles and vested interests. Explore the nature of speculative markets through evaluating 20 relevant books. Also asking he AI’s what are their assumptions and How far are they valid?
AI can help us help tackle complex issues like developing a UK housing strategy, or crafting tax policy that combines both growth and fairness. Even outlining potential roadmaps acceptable to all the stakeholders, for solving global crisis, such as the Ukraine, as well as comparing the answers with the recent US proposals. The answers can then be used to help to stimulate further questions, as well as explore more detailed strategies and action programmes. Also relevant was to ask AI to explore ‘How can Consensus Engineering be applied more effectively?’
Another area was to ask AI identify what lessons of Covid lockdown in the UK to learn for next time? Apparently, £100mn spent in the UK on an inquiry to try to get an answer? Probably AI could give us 90% of the answer in a few minutes? And sometimes, even often, attempting to produce perfect answers are both unaffordable, as well as getting in the way of making progress.
I found a fascinating exercise was to get AI to analyse ‘The Rise and Fall of Civilisations’ from a management perspective, as well as explore the tension between innovation and institutionalization in modern corporations. I also asked it to summarise and critique the Economist's views of 2026, and challenge it to consider whether demographics should be given a higher profile. (Although only one of 6 AI’s used was explicit that it wasn’t able to actually access the original document!)
Other areas include asking AI to identify the key success factors of the TV show Death in Paradise. And which Shakespeare play holds the most relevant lessons for the future. (shows how different AI's can both agree and have different views ). Summarise and critique 'The New Machiavelli' by HG Wells and a comparison to Machiavelli’s The Prince, and identify where it is relevant for today.
Summarise, critique and update Bertrand Russell’s 1960’s book, ‘Has Man a Future’. Could produce a draft in less than an hour. Of course, not the last word, but a very useful place to start.
AI and its impact on the future of Universities .. a basis for helpful discussion? Also summarise and critique a recent paper ‘AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself.’ published in December 2025, and asking AI what is the ideal way universities should use AI? (I find it is always useful to ask AI what it thinks about it’s own potential)
Recent conference on ‘Can AI be wise?’ Wrong question ...How can AI help us be wiser? (Always useful to have good questions, although AI avoids just saying no? And provides useful detailed answers. )
Then other challenges such as: Identifying the global Raw material sources, and manufacturing locations of 100 products commonly found in bathrooms(conclusion: virtually none of the raw materials or manufacturing done in the UK) Another ‘Could you develop a Wise Society Index and build a fully fleshed-out WSI framework with 50+ measurable indicators, proposed data sources, and weighting scheme and show how the major 25 countries in the world come out of this evaluation’. Another challenge How did Einstein develop his famous question E=MC². (Although I didn’t understand the answer, but AI has infinite patience in giving more detailed explanations.)
Provide a list of the 100 most influential books ever written and why? (Again some agreement and some disagreement) As was the case when asked: ‘If you were Father Christmas, what would you give Donald Trump as a Christmas present and why? And what would you suggest for his New Year resolutions?’
What was the core message of James Joyce's "Ulysses"? with a discussion on Notebooklm based material supplied by 4 AI’s. Fascinating and insightful and it certainly helped me understand what the book was about and who Joyce was.
In a completely different area, asking AI ‘Who is going to win the 2026 soccer World Cup? Could be updated, and compared with the odds given betting industry? (And don’t forget that industry is probably using this methodology to help them keep one step ahead.) (Also projections are not going to be 100% correct, but anything that helps us get close to 75% would be useful for any investors, or gamblers.) AI is going to have a profound impact on industries where the only competitive advantage comes from being well-informed!
and it can even have a reasonable go at writing poetry.
For example, I asked ChatGPT for a summary, critique, and poem about the recent ‘State of the Future 20.0’ report … and it produced an excellent summary…. ending with “Let me know if you want a shorter version, or one that leans more into a specific theme like AI, climate, or global ethics.. So I asked it could you produce another version that focuses on global ethics?
ChatGPT said: Absolutely—here’s a version of the poem that centers on global ethics as inspired by State of the Future 20.0:
ChatGPT result:
The Measure of Tomorrow
on global ethics in an age of change
What is the weight of right and wrong,
In times where power moves so strong?
When borders blur and systems strain,
Can ethics still our course sustain?
A world in flux, with wires wide,
Where truths and lies walk side by side.
Where wealth may rise, yet values fall—
Who speaks for justice, speaks for all?
Not laws alone can guard the soul,
Nor markets teach the world its role.
We need a compass deep and wise,
To read the stormclouds in our skies.
Global ethics—thread of gold,
That weaves through futures bought and sold.
It asks of us: What will you choose,
When gain means someone else must lose?
In labs where AI learns to see,
Or councils crafting policy—
Let fairness guide the silent hand,
So all may rise, not just the planned.
Let empathy, not greed, define
The algorithms we design.
Let conscience code the future’s frame,
And dignity not die for gain.
No single creed, no single land
Can claim the moral high command.
But joined in purpose, wide and far,
We light the dark, just like a star.
O dreamers, leaders, those who care—
The future waits for those who dare.
To ask not only what comes next,
But should it come?—with heart and text.
I thought it was impressive for a system that doesn't really understand what it is doing -- you might even say it’s heart was in the right place?????) But in my limited efforts to use text to speech, although the AI voice got the words right, it didn’t really reflect that they understood their emotional dimensions.
Also asking 5 AI views on: Can poetry make you a better person? (see: https://issuu.com/wfsf.president/docs/june_2025human-futures-final p22-33.) plus what is its favourate poem? And why? plus aNotebooklm discussion
AI can also useful explore its own internal biases .
Finally, I got AI to see what it could make of this exercise and it concluded with a presentation: ‘Learning with Machines: reflection on 50+ AI experiments’. Concluding: “The machine can calculate, but only an human can care. Our task is bring both together, responsibly, reflectively and wisely.”
Increasingly, the key unique human competence is not around providing answers to questions that have already been answered, but in asking and exploring questions that have never been asked before?’ AI emphasises the importance of asking clear, and new questions. helps us focus on more creative thinking, better questions and have better informed conversations. Of course, the first answers we get are only the start; there is always scope for further questions and increasingly the AI’s suggest further questions.
But, as I mentioned earlier AI has limitations …it isn’t perfect … answers need checking, and getting another AI to do an evaluation or check can be useful. But in my view, overall, it is an incredible piece of technology that is going to radically change almost every aspect of our lives and work
One AI limitation for commercial organisations is the security of the data they are inputting and private AI systems are now being developed.….. Plenty of other issues … (copyright, hallucinations, ethics.) AI will certainly replace many jobs, but just like other new technology developments in the past, it is likely, in the end, to create more new jobs than it replaces.
And for better or worse, it is likely to increase the gap between those who use it effectively and those who don’t … Good luck … I’m glad I’m not in the middle of organisations trying to grapple with these issues …
Key issues for organisations
1 Understand issues around Innovation vs Institutionalisation
2 Explore how to improve Quality conversations and better questions … Making sure we understand ‘Why do we want to know?’)
3 Use Knowledge Cafés’ to encourage the effective use of AI, within the context of improving the quality of conversations, and more effective personal and organisational learning.
4 Making sure issues about the Future are linked to internal, Organisational, Strategy and Decision-making.