Back in 2012, Seth Godin wrote about confusing correlation with causation. When lots of people are carrying umbrellas, it’s raining. So if you want to make it rain, give everyone an umbrella. Preferably a black one.

Fourteen years later, it feels rather relevant to L&D and AI.

People are using AI because it’s available, built into the tools they already use, or because they’ve been encouraged to. We might be producing content in a day that previously took a month, but that doesn’t mean the content is any more useful or that anyone is better at their job.

We’ve spent years in L&D confusing activity with impact. Counting completions and engagement as though they demonstrate improvement.

AI risks giving us a whole new set of numbers to make exactly the same mistake.