Lethal Autonomous Pitch Systems

Mid-23. Another day, another doomsday proclamation from those anti-AI.

Well, perhaps more of the 'we must control it' variety. As if more regulation is ever the actual answer. Think recent banking crises, escaped viruses and the land grabs of oppressive regimes.

Anyway. A group of medical professionals - if that's not too much of an oxymoron for you, after all there must be some talent somewhere in the field, surely - rail against the runaway trajectory of the tech du jour.

They warn of three ways in which humankind is now prone to face annihilation.

The rise of totalitarian surveillance, blowing ourselves up, and consequences of mass job losses to the bots.

Apparently 18% of AI Society (me neither) members currently agree.

Despite this apocalyptic threat, they suggest, still being a decade or three down the line (sometime between 2040 & 2065), best we confront it now. And halt all current AI development in order to establish global safeguards.

Craft your own eye-roll based on your Bond-esque Villain of choice gone rogue. One likely already in existence outside of fiction right now.

Let's though examine one of their calamitous trident. Specifically its Sales parallels. Within the second of them, is the fear of expanded, unchecked, unrelenting march of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS).

Imagine, they posit, a shipping container filled with a million flying nanobots. Once opened at their destination, the insect-sized assassins buzz off to their targets and wreak carnage.

With many more frightening scenarios besides.

Maybe we've long had something similar. Perhaps also sinister. Yet with a 'hit-rate' typically of only around 1½%, hardly the stuff of nightmares.

Think mailshot. From snail mail of the past, to e-shots, to connect requests through social media. In a related vein, there's the cold call list. Trudging through phone numbers in the hope someone will be around to answer, without any gatekeeper to intervene, and they won't do so absent-mindedly allowing them to carefully consider your potentially life-saving (well, career-saving at least) proposition.

If you've a spare day or two (!), then rattling off a hundred dials might appeal in order to generate a couple o' hot leads. After all, it should be more. As you'll no doubt have the distinctiveness, understanding and targeting which sets you apart on higher ground than the base level campaign.

But what if we had LAPS (Lethal Autonomous Pitch Systems)?

Obviously we'd need to clarify the context of 'lethal'. As in, fatal to time-wastes, reaching 'wrong' suspects, or delivering an inconsequential pitch.

Then there's 'autonomous'. Building on improving prospecting efficiency, back last century agencies were paid the prettiest of pennies to deliver a folder crammed with press cuttings each month. Noting where potential clients had mentioned the issues of interest to the prospective vendor.

In the early Noughties, Google Alerts decimated that revenue stream. Most sellers thinking they'd get all such utterings and overflowing lead-lists for free. Though it wasn't quite so clear cut, as we now know. What with subscription barriers, the volume of unworkable dross filtering through and complications with setting optimal 'alert' text and territory (hello, prompt engineers).

It likely isn't lost on you that to cover these two above pillars is central to almost every B2B lead gen endeavour.

If you can improve on them both then it is you that can cause catastrophe for any competing interest pushing their alternative.

How are you progressing on it?