"The Athenian Intelligence": Your Guide to the AI Age
Building your AI literacy and empowering you for the future, today
The journey to “The Athenian Intelligence”
Leaving the bubble
One year ago I made a life changing decision.
For 15 years I lived in a bubble. A wonderful bubble, full of amazing people, and I loved it. That bubble was the thought leadership team at Accenture. My colleagues and I could debate endlessly about trends, the hottest technological innovation, the latest economic policy, the most recent geopolitical development. My friends would talk about getting the Monday blues, not wanting to go to the office, or how dull their jobs are.
Not me!
I’d luckily found myself in that magic middle of the Venn diagram where the circles of “jobs you enjoy”, “jobs you get paid for” and “jobs you’re good at” all intersected.
But one year ago I decided to leave that bubble. I felt that there was more that I needed to try, more for me to learn about who I am, and more to discover on what I can offer to the world (the photo below is of me in front of The Academy in Athens, during my bubble phase).
Being wrong
Have you found that when you tell people that you want to start something new, everyone gives you advice? Start a podcast! Launch a newsletter! Write a book! All worthy suggestions, but none that I could take seriously without having found an idea that I passionately felt could anchor my thinking.
In March 2024 I founded a strategic foresight consultancy. I had lots of experience in using these tools to help the executive teams at large corporates to think about the future of their company and had enjoyed seeing the impact of my work—so it was a great place to start.
When you set up a business you realise you need to widen your network beyond familiar circles. That meant attending many different events.
I found myself in new settings. Lawyer roundtables. Regulation expert panels. Futurists breakfasts. Founders meet-ups.
I went from talking to execs at large corporates to directors of medium-sized businesses, or founders and entrepreneurs. From interacting with mostly consultants, researchers and technologists, to interacting with engineers, designers, creatives, policy experts.
I used to think that one of those connections might lead to a project.
But I was wrong.
Realizing the spark
One of my favourite poets, C.P. Cavafy wrote:
“When you set sail for Ithaca,
wish for the road to be long,
full of adventures, full of knowledge.”
So what I realize with the benefit of hindsight is that the value of all that networking lied elsewhere.
The value was in being exposed to such a large range of perspectives.
Every person I met was an opportunity to listen to a new viewpoint. Every project and each speaking engagement I researched was feeding me different angles. Every conversation I had was like little tetris blocks in my mind constructing a new idea.
The most interesting insights came from unexpected places. Drinks with friends, coffee with my mum, get-togethers with my neighbours. This topic would always come up when I mentioned I was researching technology trends: AI. But the questions that kept surfacing were of a very different tone from what I was used to.
Here are some questions I got that stuck in my mind:
“What do you think? Will the robots take over my job?”
“If AI is so powerful, why has it not already found the cure to all disease?”
“I tried chatGPT once, it gave me a lot of incorrect answers and have not used it since.”
“I really don’t see how AI can help my business, it seems like consulting b***s***.”
“Why bother learning about AI, look what happened with the metaverse!”
People want to talk about AI—not in an abstract, technological sense, but in a deeply personal, “how will my day to day change” way.
I had assumed the message was already clear to everyone. At Accenture I worked on a report in 2016, “Why AI is the future of growth”, estimating the potential economic benefits for GDP and profitability, and since then AI has been a recurring topic in my work. But breaking out of my bubble showed me how much people are still trying to grasp it.
And that realization sparked an idea.
Finding the purpose
There is an emerging disconnect, a new digital divide, as a result of AI becoming more prevalent in our lives. That disconnect will become increasingly visible in all areas of our economy, society and lives.
The only way to prevent it is for every individual, every team, every leader to improve their own AI literacy. This is not just about not being left behind, but also about you being empowered to shape the technology’s future, and your own, through your actions.
“The Athenian Intelligence” is my effort to bridge that gap. It’s a play on my name, sure, but I also want to reflect the spirit of Athenian values, namely helping you to become better informed so that you can be empowered to engage in public debate. The Athenians saw this empowerment as a way to a stronger city. I see this newsletter as a space where we can do the same for our future.
Understanding the divide
You might question why I say there is an emerging disconnect, and it will be explored in detail in future posts, but let’s pause for a moment on that.
Economists consider AI a General Purpose Technology.
That means that its impact on the world is so profound that it will change all economic fundamentals and bring new waves of productivity and growth. Historically, the invention of the steam engine, electricity and the internet are all general purpose technologies. These innovations enabled us to exponentially improve our standards of living.
Yet they also create new “haves” and “have nots”.
Electricity has been around for more than 100 years but more than 700 million people still do not have access to it. The Internet has been around for more than 30 years and still 2.6 billion people globally do not have access. These inequalities have largely been across countries, creating divisions along geographic boundaries between the Global North and the Global South.
But the nature of AI means that the AI divide will be different and more pervasive—not based on geographic lines but based on a range of factors, such as access to computing power and technical expertise, and this will create a more complex divide, that exists predominantly within countries.
Extending the invitation
The main thread through all of those questions that I’ve been getting is a lack of confidence in being able to talk about the topic. The lack of confidence comes from a lack of AI literacy.
My goal for this newsletter is to be a space where you can come and build your literacy and confidence about the latest technology trends, and particularly Artificial Intelligence. Where we can question different aspects of the technology together and make AI accessible to more and more people.
Technology is not only for technologists. Economics is not just for economists.
In true Athenian spirit, knowledge is power.
The more we learn about those the fields that are reshaping the world around us, the more empowered we are to change our future through our actions.
My ambition is to help you boost your AI literacy and build that confidence. To explore thorny issues together, and questions that you might not feel comfortable to ask in a business setting. To make the complex simple.
If you are looking for the latest flops of compute power that LLMs are trained on, or “3 chatGPT prompts that will change your life” then this newsletter is likely not the best fit for you. Feel free to get in touch and I can recommend others that would be suitable. But if you’re interested in understanding the bigger picture, then welcome!
I invite you to subscribe and join me on this journey of empowerment.
I’ll be here once a week. In each weekly issue of The Athenian Intelligence, we'll dive deep into the latest AI trends, developments, and their implications. We'll work to make these complex topics accessible and empowering for readers of all backgrounds. I’ve decided for now to leave the newsletter free so that as many people engage with it as possible.
Please share with those that you think would value a little wisdom on the future. And don't hesitate to submit your own questions - dialogue is core to my mission.
*Sneak preview*: Next week’s article is about the “6 misconceptions of AI” and we will unpack them together, one at time.
"Athenian Intelligence". I like this idea very much, Athena!