Tech Leader Pro

AI as a force multiplier (TLP 2025w1)

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AI is a force multiplier when applied correctly, it is the horizontal scaling of intelligence.

Notes:

  • In the military, a force multiplier is defined as the following: "In military science, force multiplication or a force multiplier is a factor or a combination of factors that gives personnel or weapons (or other hardware) the ability to accomplish greater feats than without it. The expected size increase required to have the same effectiveness without that advantage is the multiplication factor." Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_multiplication
  • The concept is to use technology to enable human effort by your team to be multiplied well beyond their normal impacts.
  • I tell the software engineers in my team that they are force multipliers, as their efforts always result in oversized impacts.
  • In software engineering, there exists the legend of the 10x engineer, that can do the same amount of work as 10 regular engineers.
  • The degree of impact here may be exaggerated, but there is no denying that some team members are far more productive that others.
  • In my opinion, the best way to increase productivity with technology is to:
    1. Take an existing manual process and automate it.
    2. Make that automation a push-button action for anyone in the team to execute, as many times as they wish.
    3. I spent 5 years in a start-up working on this exact problem, and selling the solution.
    4. Automation is a force multiplier, because it enables us to make a process reproducible, then scale it to multiple executions in parallel (the multiplication factor).
    5. For example, a process executed by 1 person manually can be executed by 100s or 1000s of computer threads in parallel. This is what computers are good at.
    6. AI is the logical end-state of all automation.
    7. You start with a script, and you end with AI.
    8. When all automations grow up, they want to be an AI.
    9. AI is your true "10x engineer", except it can be 100x or 1000x...
    10. AI is the horizontal scaling of intelligence.
    11. What I have been working on this week:
      • Posting Shorts to X, TikTok, Instragram, and YouTube.
      • Blog post: "Social media is a flywheel for bad ideas" - https://techleader.pro/a/674-Social-media-is-a-flywheel-for-bad-ideas
      • Blog post: "I will not be renewing my X Premium+ subscription" - https://techleader.pro/a/672-I-will-not-be-renewing-my-X-Premium+-subscription
      • Blog post: "Stop following bad trends in 2025" - https://techleader.pro/a/671-Stop-following-bad-trends-in-2025
      • Media I am enjoying this week:
        • "The Ceres Solution" by Bob Shaw.

          • Notes and subscription links are here: https://techleader.pro/a/675-AI-as-a-force-multiplier-(TLP-2025w1)

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          Tech Leader ProBy John Collins