Mark Cuban, the entrepreneurial investor and Shark Tank judge, recently shared his advice for small business owners and how they should approach artificial intelligence (AI).
Key Details
- Cuban recently spoke at the 2023 Mackinac Policy Conference, which was hosted in Detroit from Tuesday, May 30, to Friday, June 2, 2023.
- During his panel, he encouraged business owners of every size business to look into AI as an opportunity to improve operations and grow strong relationships with customers.
- Cuban compares AI skeptics to people who doubted the power of the internet, saying that “there [are] two types of companies in the world: Those who are great at AI and everybody else.”
- Small businesses will need to learn how to leverage AI to their advantage in order to survive in the new and coming paradigm.
Why It’s Important
Since the launch of ChatGPT on November 30, AI has faced eight months of rapid innovation, demand, and growth. The AI revolution has finally arrived, and the technology is facing increasing growth as major corporations like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple battle it out to determine who can be the first to market with competitive AI-based solutions that reduce labor and help companies find solutions to mundane regular challenges.
The sudden rise of the technology has created notable concerns about its dangers, from leading watchdogs warning that the technology could facilitate privacy violations or facilitate the end of humankind and business leaders warning that the technology could potentially wipe out thousands of low-level jobs in the next decade. Proponents of AI feel that the technology is less catastrophic than these possibilities and that large-language models are highly limited in functionality.
Possible Solutions
Regardless of the possibilities, Cuban knows that AI will have a massive impact on small businesses that are unprepared for sudden change or are unwilling to adapt. Small businesses need to prepare for the eventuality that technology will affect them, learn about what functions and options it offers, and follow developments that can create opportunities for their businesses.
“I don’t care how big you are or how small you are, you have to learn about AI. I don’t care if you’re a one-man or woman show, or if you have 1,000, 2,000, or 5,000 employees, you have to understand how AI is going to impact your business operations … Even though it seems like a lot and like it’s complicated, you have to be curious enough to figure it out, [otherwise] someone is going to kick your butt,” says Cuban.