The Musician's Rule and GenAI in General
Also, the Differences In Performance and Composition Styles
There are hundreds of AI tools, shortcuts, and “must-see” prompt formats that one can use. Popular voices and organizations claim that their ways or tools are the “best way” or the “state of the art.” Anyone who does not want AI FOMO could be caught up in the furor of the hype over these tools or prompt formats. However, we need to remember the axiom I developed from paying attention to Dr. John Curry and Dr. David Wiley: “Technological success is not about the technology, but about the user.”
One way to consider this truth is by applying the Musician’s Rule.
What is the Musician’s Rule?
Earlier a few days ago,
wrote an article elaborating on his “Musician’s Rule” related to Generative AI in Education. As he states in his article:It doesn’t matter whether you give a person a $30 student violin or a $1M Stradivarius. If you don’t also give them violin lessons, they’ll probably sound terrible.
David looks at this only in the context of education, which makes sense because his focus is on education. However, this principle is also true in the context of work you do, in any profession or role.
How does the Musician’s Rule Impact the Workplace?
It doesn’t matter whether you have a specialized $50/month tool or a free text-based tool. If you are not knowledgeable about how a report or program or project should be structured, then a fancy new tool will not help you. If you are knowledgeable about how to do these things, then you should not need the tool to create high-quality products. However, it can impact your effectiveness and help you explore new ideas in the time that you could have used in manually creating the report. This is analogous to a Stradivarius not being necessary to play a piece well, but enhancing the sound and authenticity of a performance piece.
What insights do you have about this concept?
What do you think are the different types of AI “instruments?”
What do you think are the different AI “genres” or “styles?”