Come With Me if You Want to Live – Why Augmentation Is the Only Way to Fly

“I’m dead against it. Not going to go there, nope. No way! Why should I change? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Except it is broken. Completely broken. And it needs to change.

You won’t be shocked to hear I’m talking about the professional response of many to the rise of AI. Ironic, right?

The same folks who say vet med sucks because it’s too busy, there aren’t enough people, young people suck, COVID dogs suck, and clients suck… are often the ones scoffing at what is clearly part of the solution. Too many people, too much work? Here’s a tool to help with that! But no, let’s throw shade instead.

The resistance is real. And just like Sarah Connor in the later Terminator movies, veterinary medicine can’t seem to get its collective head around the idea that machines can actually help us. Generative AI isn’t here to kill us all. It’s not here to take all our jobs.

AI is a massively helpful tool, capable of doing the heavy lifting of about 80% of anything that requires recalling information, analysis, computation, writing, ordering… etc.

It’s not the evil machine coming to kill you. You are the badass cyborg coming to kill the work monster.

AI costs you a few bucks a month, it knows pretty much everything on the internet, and it doesn’t sleep. It’s basically a superpower.

This isn’t the Terminator coming for you. Not yet. Turns out it’s more like becoming one of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

It’s like having Iron Man’s suit. Or Nebula’s augmentation. And seriously, who wouldn’t want that? Every one of us can and should pick this tool up and become an augmented superhero. The demands on our time absolutely require it.

“Screw you, Dave, you’re just asking us to do more…for the same pay. You suck too!”

Facepalms. Deep breath.

No, no, I’m not. That’s exactly the opposite of what I’m saying. I want you to have a great work life and a great home life. AI, used well, will allow that.

Take yesterday, for example. Here are just four ways I used AI to get more done in less time:

1. I asked AI to write an Excel formula to help me analyse some results and produce the information to make a decision. A task that might have taken me an hour? Done in five minutes. Time saved = 55 minutes.

2. A job advert needed revision and tidying up. Normally, that would take me 30 minutes. It was done in 5 seconds, and I spent a further 5 minutes reviewing and tweaking it. Time saved = 25 minutes.

3. I had a piece of feedback to give a friend—something that would’ve sat on my to-do list for days, festering in my mind. Important, but not urgent. Last night, I rambled for 5 minutes into AI and asked it to summarise. A couple of tweaks later, I had what I needed, done and sent. Was this a direct time-saver? Maybe not. But here’s the huge thing: I would’ve procrastinated on this for days, doing a massive disservice to a friend and feeling shitty about it. That guilt, that potential damage to a relationship, is the real cost here—an emotional drain I avoided. Cost of emotional weight lifted and relationship enhanced? Priceless.

4. I used AI to generate a list of differential diagnoses for a tricky case based on the clinical history, as part of a trial to support in practice colleagues. Did it save me direct time? Not necessarily. But there’s no doubt AI can already produce good-quality, referenced information that helps vets make decisions. The collective time saved and stress reduced by having access to such a resource? Incalculable.
   

A net gain of roughly an hour, and that was a light usage day. 

For those in practice, using dictation-enabled AI alone (properly, not half-assed) can save you enough time to actually eat lunch and make your calls. It’ll also improve your overall communication ability by both writing fast and well. Not to mention reducing those stress/low blood sugar anger moments, because, you know, you got lunch. The potential for an upside impact on the burnout problem is massive. How I wish this existed when I was a graduate. (Sadly we have not yet cracked time so I cannot go back like John Conner.)

For clinic managers, AI allows you to dive deeper into data, generate more content, perform deep analysis, and complete reports in seconds.

Done right, many jobs could be condensed into a couple of hours.

The name of the game is efficiency and insight. Better efficiency means more productivity and less stress. Better insight means better decisions. 

So come with me if you want to live. It’s not too late, yet. The rise of the machines is happening, but so too is the rise of the augmented super-human. It’s time to suit up!

PS – While I can teach you a lot about using the machines to help you in your day (joining one of my leadership courses is the most economical way to gain this benefit), one thing I’d make very clear is that I don’t use AI to write these blogs. (Spell check - yes. Ideation and writing - no.

You’ll know one of my articles by the voice—AI still can’t nail that. Not yet. It will, one day. But even when it does, I’ll keep writing from the heart, because I love writing. And, judging by your feedback, you respond to the words I write. So what’s your response to this blog?