Rage against the (AI) machine
Let's keep some things human. Even ChatGPT agrees!
Cast your mind back to when AI went mainstream.
I’m not talking about when we first heard of it.
The moment that we knew it was real.
I remember it quite clearly, I reckon it was about a couple of years ago. ChatGPT went mainstream, Midjourney started creating mind-blowing images, and everyone on social media started to use apps to create new images of themselves.
Many of us knew about AI before, but our understanding was at different levels. For me, my mind was blown. However during a chat with Gary Turner (the former UK MD of Xero) over lunch in Northampton, at around this time, it was clear that others knew it was coming. He pretty much dismissed the ‘innovation’ out of hand, telling me that Midjourney was just an app placed over the top of something he knew was there for a long time.
If anyone would know this stuff, big G would. And so, our conversation went back to retro gaming of course. Chatting AI to him would be mind numbing for one side of the conversation - I’d learn loads, he’d be teaching me my times tables and phonics. At least I can hold my own when talking about the reasons why you should skip Sonic and play Sonic 2 instead, or the merits of Street Fighter II - Rainbow Edition.
Anyway, back to the subject.
The thing that wowed me about the mainstream ‘AI explosion’ was the fact that it wasn’t what I was expecting AI to do first.
Working in and around the finance world, I expected further evolutions of what we’d seen. I expected a development in machine learning, or at the very least, the ability for tech to commoditise some of the jobs that consist of mindlessly tapping keys and entering data that had already been entered onto another system.
In fact, back in the days when my keynotes focused on the ‘Future Of Business’, I predicted that the two things that automation and tech wouldn’t be able to fully replace were those things that required exceptional communication or exceptional craft.
And guess who I thought had the perfect job? Dentists. Not only do they need to know what they’re doing and have the manual dexterity to do it well, but they need to charm the pants off of me to get me in that chair if there’s a risk of a needle going into my gums!
But no.
The area that was positioned in the cross hairs of technology advancement was the creativity once reserved for great artists and writers.
At least, that’s how it seemed to me.
Mind. Blown.
Fast forward to today. The technology has gone from a ‘wow’ moment to a largely forgotten innovation. Don’t get me wrong, lots of people use it - we just don’t pay a fiver on the App Store to get a few pictures or ask ChatGPT to tell us a random fact. That stuff was the novelty effect.
What hasn’t changed is my firm belief that the things that are impossible to fully replace are those that require exceptional communication or exceptional craft. And we are using AI in the wrong way.
Right now, you can log into LinkedIn and see a feed full of AI posts and comments.
Yes, that’s right. It’s AI posting those almost too logical written posts, complete with emoji bullet points and a strained call to action. Did you really think that Jim from accounts receivable has learned the keyboard shortcuts for emojis and suddenly found the motivation for 5 posts a week, when he’s actually counting down the minutes until his retirement day? And don’t get me started on the comments - four or five lines of big words reinforcing the original post but frankly, spoken like a machine.
Worryingly, some people use it to word their articles, their emails and their websites. I might be a bit old fashioned but I can spot it a mile off, just like the social posts. It ain’t human.
Now here’s a disclaimer. I use ChatGPT on occasion, and probably not often enough. But I don’t use it to write for me. I should also add that I use generative images on this blog, simply because I have the artistic skills of a 3 year old.
Here’s the important point on this though - the images on this blog are absolutely not the reason people come here, nor the benefit that they hope to receive. If Substack gave me the option of a theme that didn’t require images, I’d do that. It’s a pain in the backside having to click ‘Generate image’ and think of something just to match the theme. That’s why I approach it from a minimal effort perspective - I’d rather put my time into writing, researching, or other stuff outside of this blog.
So, what do I use ChatGPT for?
Firstly, research. I believe that ChatGPT is Google on steroids. Google has gone from being the simplest, quickest search back when it took on the likes of Lycos, Yahoo! and Altavista; to a monster that over the years has succumbed to SEO games, advertising, and unfortunate design choices. I can ask ChatGPT to provide me with 10 studies on a certain subject, with requests around the data sets and credibility, and it feeds me with a bunch of links for me to look through at my leisure.
The other main area is ideation, and not what you’re thinking. I know some people use it to create a list of content ideas for social media marketing. Marketers having access to ChatGPT has dumbed down the creativity that was and is the reserve of great thinkers such as Rory Sutherland. I prefer my content to be unstructured and to drop the moment I get inspiration, rather than a generic list of ‘52 content ideas’ neatly scheduled into a calendar. So instead, I use it to provide different perspectives on my own thoughts. When doing this, I generally write my prompts to frame the answers to be the ones that I don’t necessarily want.
For example, I am going to write a future blog about chess and the benefits I’ve found from playing the game. But I don’t want to fall foul of confirmation bias. By asking ChatGPT to both attack my ideas and to provide negative impacts of playing, it helps me to round out my thinking and to consider all angles of the subject matter.
It opens my eyes, sharpens my saw, and hopefully helps me to think better. And create better thoughts.
I have a host of other thoughts around AI, some of which I may share on here in future posts. I’ve talked about it on stage, and heard some fascinating speakers share their perspectives, notably at LEAP in Riyadh. I’ve seen some of the stuff first hand, experienced it, and have my own views on it. But that’s not the subject for today.
So on that note, I felt it best to end this one with a few words from ChatGPT. The only AI words you’ll see on here. On this one I didn’t ask for an attack, just a simple ‘PR’ style snippet to capture the thoughts of the machine. Kind of like big Bill Clinton’s “I did not have sexual relations with…”. And despite my hopes that it would provide me with something earth shattering, it instead gave me a pat on the back.
Thanks ChatGPT x
Carl Reader is a WH Smith Bestselling Author and international keynote speaker with a real passion for helping people do better. There are two ways to learn more about Carl! You can either follow him on Social Media if you’re just curious (@carlreader on most platforms), or if you’d like to learn a little more about what he does on stage, through content and in the media from a commercial perspective, you can visit his website at www.carlreader.com
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