Using AI to suggest analogies

These videos are a bit like a pair of sparkly platform shoes. They elevate you to a new level. They make you feel a bit special and they hopefully put a smile on a few people's faces. That's the power of an analogy right there. Analogies can be a really useful tool when you're trying to make a complicated idea more accessible. It's like trying to explain the experience of eating biltong to someone who's never had it. It's like chewing on the most delicious strap of your grandmother's handbag. I'm sure you all want to try it now. But not all analogies are golden, some might be more like fool's gold, shiny but worthless. For instance, the tired cliché of a light bulb representing an idea, or a rocket representing the launch of something new. But if it makes something easier to understand, and it's not as stale as last week's bread, you could be on to a good thing. Naturally, I've written a prompt to help you here. It will generate analogies to help you on your way. So let's see if we can unearth any gems in this demo. Let me read out our prompt. "Imagine you are a highly experienced and awarded creative thinker who has worked across multiple creative disciplines. I'm going to give you {details} about the product or service I'm working on, and you're going to give me a list of ten analogies to help me think about it in a different way. Present your response using markup with a creative headline for each analogy, followed by a paragraph describing it in detail. Explore broadly with your analogies to cover different topics, and prioritize unusual ideas that you would not normally consider." Right. Here's our details. So what I'm putting in here is something that might be a little bit complicated for people to get their minds around. They might not see the benefits of it very easily. So here's our details. "A building maintenance company that specializes in skyscrapers." I don't know if this is a thing, I'm making this up, okay? "We use technology and regular human checks to monitor the condition of the building to tackle issues before they become expensive. Our approach can greatly reduce the amount spent on maintenance over time, causing less disruption to tenants and being more responsible to the environment." Right. Let's see what it does here for analogies. Okay. So it's given us ten analogies there that are going from symphony orchestra, gardeners, doctors, chefs. But it might be that we want to explore some different kinds of analogies. So all we have to do is say, please, can you give me ten more based on, let's say, nature, and animals. Okay. Some some really quite bizarre ones in there. I think my favorite there is the Shepherds of Steel Sheep, but it might be that there's another thing you want to explore. It could be, please give me five more based on the concept of time-travel, because I thought that was an interesting thing. They brought in time-travel as part of their ideas. So let's see if it comes up with anything here that's interesting. Okay. It's really getting incredibly conceptual here. I love this, the Chrono-Arborists of Urban Trees. So the buildings or the trees, the chrono-arborists, the time tree doctors. Yeah, it's really pushing the boat out with these. Now, these are ideas that I think you would struggle to get humans to come up with some of this stuff, I mean, particularly this, that the quantum engineers of building stability, the chrono-arborists of urban trees, and the temporal lighthouses of urban navigation. You know, it's stuff that humans wouldn't naturally come up with, really, but they're kind of interesting and pushing our thinking into new directions. And it's one of the things I particularly love about AI is that it comes up with stuff that feels unfamiliar to me as somebody who's seen so many ideas coming from humans. It's just pushing the concepts into new directions and there could be something in some of these. And to me, if it's something that I find that makes me stop and think or something that feels unfamiliar, that's something that I then find intriguing and something that I want to explore. So that's what I personally love about when I'm working with AI, as almost like a creative partner in some of this stuff. So I'm hoping that you find some of this stuff sparked your thinking in different ways, because it's certainly doing that for me. As you can see, analogies can be a mighty ally in understanding and communicating, maybe in just helping you understand what you're communicating better. A good analogy can break down barriers, add flair to your message, and make the audience nod in recognition. But tread carefully. Avoid those well-worn paths that lead to clichés. Forge your own trail and who knows, you might just discover a new way of thinking that says refreshing as a cool breeze on a hot day. That was a simile right there. It's different to an analogy, but maybe one of those could help you too.