A tsunami of technological change is about to bury you
Actually, you’re already buried by a tsunami of technological change and you just don’t know it yet. Or at least, some of you don’t. I’m not that worried about those reading this who feel overwhelmed by the rapidity of change, struggling to keep up. Because in reality you’re already trying to learn and seeing the major trends. You’re treading water a few feet below the surface of the wave right now but you’ll be fine if you keep on growing. I’m worried about those who are oblivious to the fact they are pinned down to the bottom of the ocean floor with no idea they should be trying to swim up. There is a growing disparity between folks keeping up with the rapidity of change happening in their field, and those who are not. I was talking to a smart colleague recently who indicated that they hadn’t played around with chatGPT or any other LLM, or any AI tool at all, and honestly was quite unsure what they even were. That conversation led to me realize how easy it is, even for the smartest among us, to miss out on transformative technology simply because we are busy or skeptical. And this worries me a lot.
Be Curious
I’m writing this as an encouragement for everyone, but particularly knowledge workers, entrepreneurs, leaders, and medical professionals to once again be curious learners. To avoid the kind of intellectual complacency that so often develops late in one’s career but is now threatening to happen much earlier. Historically this has looked like once brilliant diagnosticians gradually becoming Uncle Rico, stuck in the good old days quoting out-dated literature with dramatic flair all the while oblivious to the fact that everyone else knows they’ve lost their edge. However, the consequences of falling behind are more serious now than they ever have been, and will happen quicker and earlier in one’s career than what we’ve traditionally seen. You cannot afford to get behind right now. You must be an intentional learner. You must have relentless curiosity.
That Escalated Quickly
There was a time a few years ago when I felt like I was on top of the latest and greatest advancements in my field, and even able to watch new trends happening in adjacent fields. My knowledge and experience in digital pathology, AI image analysis, and molecular diagnostics in veterinary medicine surpassed the majority of my colleagues. It was fun to look forward to the rare CE event or webinar focused on the future of AI in medicine, dreaming of what the future might hold. The information was coming at a manageable pace. But today it’s overwhelming to open my daily literature curation feed and find it overflowing with loads of incredible papers and advancements that I can barely keep up with. I go on vacation and come back to find that my favorite new tool or model is now replaced by something better. Predicting trends, knowing which institution or company or product is going to move the needle, heck, even understanding what some of these models are doing- it’s all, as Ron Burgundy said, escalating quickly. And somebody may have already been killed with a trident in the process.
So, I’m being candid here to let you know that you’re not alone if you’re feeling like the rapid pace of technological change is leaving you behind. I’m right there with you. The folks out there claiming to be experts in any of this revolution are probably feeling the same way too. They’re just better at faking confidence.
Be an Early Adopter? No thanks
If you haven’t engaged, and you’ve been resisting exploring and learning this new world of tech, I get it. Historically, late adopters have for the most part been just fine, because change was slow, and catching up was doable. Didn’t have a Blackberry when they were the hot new thing? No worries, there weren’t big consequences if you skipped the Blackberry adoption and jumped straight to the smart phone. You figured it out quickly. Remember teaching your grandparents how to text? It took awhile for many older folks to adopt a new method of communication, but smartphones were user-friendly enough to bridge the gap and it didn’t take long for octagenarians to learn Farmville. But today, it’s not just about learning a new gadget. It’s about navigating an entire host of interconnected technologies undergirded by AI that will change many aspects of how almost every worker and industry gets stuff done. Automation, creativity platforms, efficiency tools, tools for other tools, and tools we haven’t even dreamed up yet.
A Growing Disparity
The disparity between the engaged and un-engaged is growing. Rapidly. We keep hearing the phrase “AI won’t replace people, but people using AI will replace people not using AI”. That’s probably true, but it’s more complex than that as it’s not just about using AI or not, but instead it’s about whether you are embracing the new way of doing the work in your field that AI enables, along with all of the implications and related systems, versus doing it the traditional way. I’m reluctant to even provide examples for fear they’ll be outdated next month. Suffice it to say that businesses like human and veterinary hospitals can’t continue scheduling and hand writing records and communicating with clients like they did in 2010. Diagnostic labs can’t blindly ignore the wealth of multi-omic data emerging alongside cheapening methods of analyzing and interpreting it. Pharmaceutical companies can’t disregard the threat from more nimble and innovative machine-learning based drug discovery platforms. Content creators and marketing firms have to realize the powerful tools now in the hands of their potential clients. Entrepreneurs leveraging these new tools look like they have superpowers as they build leaner, smarter, faster-moving businesses and leave the others in the dust. Each industry is replete with these growing disparities.
Building to this Moment
It’s actually quite fascinating to realize how we’ve been building to this moment of revolution for decades now and just didn’t realize it. When medical records became digitized, data began to accumulate without a clear way to harness it. The Human Genome Project spurred incredible findings, but they remained disconnected. Digital pathology led to incredible stockpiles of images with unrealized data hidden in the swirling pinks and purples, yet bandwidth and storage limitations slowed progress. For decades we’ve been digitizing everything-laying the groundwork for something bigger. Generative AI lit the match, turning decades of accumulated data into an inferno of innovation. It’s not that AI wasn’t around before. There was plenty of great work happening with AI in many fields. But it wasn’t sexy, it wasn’t cool, and it wasn’t in the public eye. AI had been advancing steadily for years, but the arrival of generative AI thrust it into the spotlight, accelerating progress and capturing public imagination. It brought awareness to the possibilities, diverted investor money toward all things AI, and spawned a new genre of startup companies. Matt Ridley, in his book “How Innovation Works” describes innovation as “a gradual, incremental, collective yet inescapably inevitable process”. He gives the example of the light bulb emerging from the combined technologies of the day, saying “it was bound to appear when it did, given the progress of other technologies.” In a similar way, this moment was inevitable. It just caught most of us by surprise in how fast everything started changing.
The good news? It’s not too late to catch up. It’s not too late to learn. Massive change is coming but it hasn’t passed you by just yet. And you don’t have to master it all overnight. You just need to be curious and start taking small steps. My goal for you in 2025 is this: Be curious. Be a learner. Take action, and get excited about the ways these new tools can make you look and feel superhuman. Because the alternative- standing still-might not just set you back; it could take you out completely.
Teaser: In my next newsletter I’m excited to share some revolutionary technology that almost none of you know exists. Stay tuned!
