Building habits...

AI is not going away

And for that reason I find myself wanting to embrace as much of is as I can. Normal tongue-in-cheekery will resume next week, but I’m feeling a touch melancholy today and need to higlight an AIlephant in the room…

I understand the ethical dilemmas, the technological challenges, the concern about sustainability, the worry about the econimocal impacts, both micro and macro. But we live in a world where there are many other people and organisations that either about those things, or don’t care about them enough to impact their bottom line.

Facts are the AI and AI tools are saving people inside and outside of organisations a TON of time. And when it comes to the healthy running of most organisations; time is money. When the World Wide Web was conceived in my lifetime (yes, I’m older than Google), it was adopted by companies quicker than you could say “Hold the line, caller”. When drag-and-drop functionality on software became possible, every developer wanted to include it. When the Smartphone first dropped on the Market, everyone wanted one.

And since, say 2022, everyone now wants a piece of AI.

But the problem I see is that most people don’t see the benefits of AI, or even its capabilities. Only now, in mid to late 2025, are some companies really seeing a return on investment of implementation of AI tools on their architecture.

But a scroll through a social media platform of your choice will see you exposed to AI in more ways that you could probably conceive (unless you work in the biz, of course!) And in my humble opinion, it’s making people cynical about AI. Perhaps more importantly, when it comes to matters of great passion, it’s making some people blind to the existence or probability of AI. A recent post showing thousands of Union flags on a long, wide street, reminscent of the Mall in London, stirred great pasion and patriotism in some people. Other people noticed the trees and Arc de Triomphe in the background and immediately screamed “IT’S AI!”

But of course such photos were possible 10 years ago when people would then be screaming “IT’S PHOTOSHOP!”

What’s changed? Well actually very little except the accessibility and availability of such tools. People (as in actual, living, breathing) are still actively creating these fake photos. Potentially with the intention of stirring up division, or more likely (at least in my mind) just trying to have a little fun!

Some people create, some spot the fakery, others don’t. Whether it was photos of fairies in early 20th century, or the Loch Ness Monster, people have been deliberately creating fake photos for almosty as long as photos have existed.

AI is not the problem. People are.

Ok, let me clarify; the nature of people to trust what they see is the problem, peppered with a little dubious and potentially ethically-grey intention.

But from my perspective, some people are hesitant on trying AI tools because of the insecurity on their potential unfair usage. And I get it.

This site has been created by me. A person. Living, breathing and trying to make the world a better place. But I couldn’t have done it without the help of AI. Certainly not as quickly!

And using this site, I plan to help people take control over the data that permeates their lives every single day. Who knows, it may enrich your lives a little. It may help you get that job you wanted. And even better, I might even cause a smile or two! These skills are going to be no longer ‘Desirable’ for many jobs moving forward - they’ll be essential. So grab hold of your future, learn how to use these tools and profit! Financially or emotionally or both!

On the Home Page you’ll see a link to my Facebook page. On there, you’ll see a small, but slowly building library of reels showing you some functionality of spreadsheets. I’m using Google Sheets for now because it’s free (and who doesn’t like free?), and has a pretty god mobile app. Which means that Data Analysis is available to everyone!

Next week, I’ll decide how to best securely host the data set I’m using so you can have a play too. If you want it in the meantime, then contact me through the form here

Over the next couple of months I’ll be talking more about Data, but also how AI fits into this swirly numbers-based world we have.

Until then, have a great week - I’ll be back to my usual dry sarcastic self next time, I’m sure. It’s been a strange few days in the world so felt a more sober aproach was important.

Anyway, enough from me - Duke here. Signing off.