On today's show we're going to talk about a disease that affects almost every organization. It's a disease that can cost a ton of money, delay projects, create disputes between business partners, and undermine the quality of decisions.
I've coined a new word to describe this disease. I'm calling it versionitis.
Versionitis is what happens when a project becomes negatively impacted by someone relying on the wrong version of a document, a drawing, a spreadsheet, or some other source of information.
The problem is not new. But artificial intelligence is making versionitis potentially much more dangerous.
Imagine you're developing a 100-unit apartment building. The architect has prepared a set of drawings. Those drawings have gone through several revisions as the project moves through design development, permitting, and construction.
At some point, the structural engineer receives a set of architectural drawings and designs the structural system around them.
Meanwhile, the architect makes a change to the location of a mechanical shaft. The revised drawing gets distributed to some members of the design team, but not everyone.
The structural engineer continues working from the earlier version.
The discrepancy might not become apparent until the contractor discovers that a structural beam is occupying the same space as the mechanical ductwork.
Now there's a problem.
Someone needs to redesign the structure, reroute the mechanical system, or perhaps both. Depending on when the conflict is discovered, the cost could be relatively minor or extremely expensive.
Nobody necessarily made a mistake in their engineering calculations. The problem was that two competent professionals were working from two different versions of reality.
That's versionitis.
If you give AI access to the directory structure on your computer, how do you know which files it relied upon for its analysis?
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