Serena H. Huang, Ph.D.’s Post

Recently, some graduation speeches mentioning AI were booed by students. I don’t think everyone is rejecting AI itself. I think they are rejecting messaging that feels disconnected from reality. People are anxious about jobs, relevance, and how fast everything is changing… When leaders speak about AI with nonstop hype and no acknowledgment of the uncertainty people feel, it creates distance instead of trust. What stood out to me at Alteryx Inspire was different. There was excitement about AI, yes. (This is also one of the nerdiest and most passionate data communities I have seen in a long time.) During the product announcements, someone literally shouted “that’s fire” when the new dark mode was revealed. The Grand Prix competition for top Alteryx users had people cheering like it was a championship sporting event. That level of user engagement tells me: People still deeply care about building, solving and mastering their craft. What I appreciated most was the emphasis on TRUST. Andy MacMillan and Ben Canning repeatedly mentioned the importance of trust in AI outputs, trust in workflows, and trust in adoption. That stood out to me because the current conversation around AI adoption has become oversimplified. Respectfully, AI adoption is not just a “people problem”. It is ALSO a technology problem. No amount of change management will make people adopt AI that produces low quality outputs or fails in real workflows. People need systems they can trust. And then, they need leaders who can help them understand where they (still) create value alongside AI. That is where HOPE comes from, especially for those of us who work in data. It’s not from pretending disruption is not real. But from being HONEST about the challenges while still giving people a path forward. #AlteryxInspire #AI #sponsored Data With Serena™️