I have been using Bard recently to develop some new concepts and bounce ideas off and I have to say I love it.
According to Wikipedia, ‘Bard is a conversational generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Google.’
Here is why Bard has made such an impact on me.
Bard is:
- available 24:7; this means that i can generate ideas when I need them
- never gets tired or irritable
- open to my sometimes left-field questions or ideas
- an idea generator
- a way to get started on any creative or problem solving journey
- responds in an amazingly quick way
- an invaluable tool when you are working by yourself
- useful in all the stages of the creative process from generating ideas, enhancing, connecting and evaluating
Don’t get me wrong I still enjoy human interaction but suddenly i feel that my own creative performance has been enhanced.
I am being stretched and pushed in ways that I did not think was possible.
Now imagine the impact on a team or organisation on innovation, growth and learning of being able to use Generative AI tools like Bard.
I particularly love the iterative nature of my interactions with Bard.
In these interactions I used my Switch Thinking tool kit to challenge my thinking and the initial responses to a prompt.
For example, you define a problem and wait for a response from Bard.
Then i might use a switch like – can you give me 3 new ideas from the perspective of a clown?
This is an example of Switching Perspective – one of the 6 Switches.
After one session I wrote down my experience in using this tool.
- we were equals and co-creators
- I loved the sometimes ‘aha’ moment when I would use a prompt and an insightful response would emerge
- there was a sense of exploration and discovery
- I had a feeling of flow
These types of interactions for me mean that debates about what is human creativity vs AI are somewhat redundant.
I am more interested in how I can work with these types of generative AI tools to boost our individual and collective total creativity.
I am interested in AND not OR.
For me then the interactions between humans and AI can be made more creative which means that the total amount of creativity can be boosted.
This might mean that together we can solve problems in a more collaborative, faster and effective way.
Using tools such as Bard is one such way.