Representing one of the older generations, I know how important it is that we contribute to supporting the next emerging generation, Gen Z. Some have described me as a business artist. Having lived in Silicon Valley most of my life I have seen the speed of innovation on the front lines as I started companies, ran a global public company, and helped support the creation of the electronics and software industry, while growing my family and keeping up with my lifetime passion for music.

The rate of innovation continues to accelerate and that will require us to use our imagination to adapt to the resulting changes in work, life, and learning. Many are already applying AI to improve efficiencies in how we get things done today , but there is less emphasis on how we can use our imagination to come up with new and creative ways to use AI to serve us in all aspects of our life. Take music as an example: will we use these new AI tools to replace music makers or will we leverage the capabilities of these tools to help us amplify our imagination and support our own musical efforts?

This is not to say that people aren’t rightfully concerned about AI in general. Unchecked, it could be exploited to give more power to the few. I believe that  we need a countervailing force, using AI for creative inspiration for the many. I’ve been encouraged to help provide leadership around this by several in my network to explore how creativity combined with technology can offer us a better path forward.

In my last post I shared how I recently brought the voice of ChatGPT into the process of helping me create and craft a song for my daughter’s wedding. . ChatGPT gave me a jump start, enabling me to develop the song with a co-producer and artists in just six weeks. In an upcoming series of articles, I plan to bring music/art, technology, and business together in exploring AI and creativity. Here are some examples that I plan to share to encourage you to explore this topic yourself:

• Personal Authenticity – What can we explore with AI that helps us as individuals advance our potential in work, life, and learning?
• Small group or teaming with AI – What are our roles, how do we bridge the geographical distance to achieve more, and how can we effectively use prompt engineering to help?
• Setting context – Simulating the potential of AI for work, life, and learning.

This is being posted to Ourmedia with funding and volunteer support from a few individuals who are dedicated to exploring how we can apply creativity to AI while helping us all develop skills that can be applied to work, life, and learning. We would like to encourage more of you to get involved. We would love to have your support, volunteering, mentoring young people, and speaking up to develop a community of builders who are interested in creating  a more collective voice in how we leverage this technology. This is not about the one but the many.

In particular, we are interested in helping surface the voices of Gen Z. While we don’t yet have the answers as to how to best do this, we are beginning our exploration with determining how we might be able to help prepare them for the 2030s. Capitalizing on our own successes, we are providing mentorship opportunities to young people with the hopes of setting them up to succeed. We are doing this with students, partners, and other businesses today.

We have lost 20-30% of our middle class in the last 20 years. What if we could rebuild it for the 2030s to better serve us in work, life, and learning? There will be many people focusing on improving efficiencies through AI, which will likely lead to the loss of many jobs. We believe that paving a path forward  that combines creativity with AI can create new jobs and contribute to helping rebuild the middle class. Please lean in, send us your thoughts, and jump in with us.