The Art of Augmentation
Today we are opening our new report The Great Augmentation. Within this report, we take a look at the risks, considerations and good bits of LLMs in the modern workplace.
Oh, and we have licensed all our work under CC-BY-NC 4.0 to help keep innovation in the light.
Vanessa Piper, Principal Explorer
04 June, 2024
Here in lil old New Zealand, we’re cruising hastily towards a scrappy Winter. It’s dark when we get up, it’s dark by the time we get home from work, and here in Wellington it’s miserably windy all the darn time. However, the lawns still need mowing, the dogs still need walking, the kids apparently still need feeding.
With dark days and bitter southerlies in mind, it becomes more important than ever to keep perspective and compassion - something that Mark and I remind each other of all the time. Particularly when merging with traffic.
We’ve been building Distant Field Labs for several months now, and part of that process has been a relentless temperature check of “how are we feeling about the work we’re doing, and are we on track to where we want to be?”, and adjusting accordingly.
Sometimes it’s as simple as tone; one of us occasionally needing to drop some of the habitual corporate voice, one of us (ahem) needing to sprinkle a little less salt.
Other times, it is “are we helping here, or becoming part of the problem?” which Mark wrote about recently in “Innovation in Light”. That opinion piece led to various conversations and revelations; reminding us of what we started this for, and how we can better bring what we’re doing to those who have the greatest need.
So .. What ARE We Doing Here?
We started this project because we noticed a gap, and quite a significant one. The existing research often dances to the tune of vendor bias or gets tangled in commercial interests, making it tough for decision-makers to find impartial insights.
It’s also often hidden in 50 page reports and infographics, circular phrasing, ‘synergising’ and unnecessary complications.
That’s why we committed ourselves to producing research that’s balanced and to-the-point, ensuring you get the full picture without the sales pitch.
A New Report
Today at Distant Field Labs, we’re excited to unveil our latest creation: "The Great Augmentation" report, a deep dive into the universe of Large Language Models (LLMs). This report isn’t just a compilation of facts; it’s a journey through the pros, cons, and transformative potential of LLMs in the workplace, crafted especially for those who make the big decisions.
Knowledge Without Barriers
In the spirit of open access and knowledge-sharing, we're releasing "The Great Augmentation" under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence.
This means anyone, anywhere, can use, share, and adapt the information—as long as it’s not for commercial purposes. That said, if you do want to use it for commercial purposes, drop us a line and we can chat about it.
A Commitment to Openness
We’re also extending the use of Creative Commons licensing across all our previous public reports, and observations. We believe that the more we all gate-keep knowledge, the slower we advance as a collective.
By making our insights freely available, we hope to inspire others to do the same.
We may find limited success in this; in fact it’s entirely likely we’re utterly ignored; but we do get to sleep better at night knowing we’ve made a start in creating and sharing something we believe in.
Join Us at the Frontier
Our Open Source Intelligence Hub is more than just a project—it’s a passion. We believe that the best futures are crafted with empathy, collaboration, and an open exchange of ideas, not through siloed and monetised intelligence.
So, we invite you to join us.
Read the report, share it, talk about it. Let’s make emerging technologies not just something to profit from, but a landscape we navigate together for the betterment of all.
