On a Cloud

A while back I was thinking about how AI was in our lives for better or worse. I was both excited and concerned about the benefits and risks that come with such a tool. I have found myself taking advantage of many AI tools these days. I find that they help me to work smarter. It makes some parts of my life easier. Unfortunately, I don’t think AI is at that point where you can truly let go and trust it completely. 

I have tried using AI for work research and found that it does not always spit out factual information. With knowledge of the industry I am researching, it was easy for me to spot errors. As helpful as it can be, it makes me concerned that other people may not see the errors in the information it gives. There could be factual information, but sometimes there are inaccuracies in between. False information, whether intended or not, is concerning. People tend to take what they see online and run with it (so to speak). And that's scary when you think about how not everything online is true.

The one thing that AI has helped me with is summarizing text. If I have a long document such as transcripts or case studies and need to summarize it, AI helps make it faster. If I need to check on the tone of a document I am writing, I can pass it through AI and see where I can improve. As far as work goes, it has been helpful to a certain extent. 

Part of my job involves proofreading the work of others. I’ve found that teaching people to use AI has helped make my job easier. I taught people to get feedback on their work and how to improve on it and it has made a difference. Since teaching people I work with to do that, I’ve seen improvement in the work that they have put out. There are times when using AI can be questionable. But for work not centered on a person’s creativity, I find it very efficient. 

As helpful as it has been for work, I draw the line at some parts of my life when using AI. I write as a creative passion. That said, I am not open to letting AI write for me. For the most part, I use it to get feedback instead of asking it to edit or rewrite my work. It would not be my work if AI wrote it for me, and it would be inauthentic and it would not satisfy me at all. I know some would prefer to have the AI do the job, but I can’t. I can admit to experimenting to see what kind of work it can do if I give my ideas to it. However, the result has always been something that I have not been happy with. AI is good, but it still cannot capture the essence of what I want my work to be. 

Of course, there are parts of my creative process where I have been using AI. Usually, it’s not to create the ideas or produce the entire work. It's mostly for things to make the work (somewhat) easier. When it comes to writing, this means the use of spelling and grammar tools. Writing tools to detect if I am being redundant or repetitive with certain words or phrases. For photos and videos, it’s about editing to produce the look that I want faster with filters. Or for the podcast that I edit, to help remove silences in the conversations faster. 

AI has been helpful, but it is something that needs to be responsibly used and with a bit of caution. People may argue that some errors I’ve found could be because I am only using free versions, but I don’t agree. If the free version shows errors, how can it promise to be worth my money on the paid one? This is a promising development in tech, but it is still in the growing stages. It is a good tool that can help, but it still cannot replace the human touch. Not yet anyway.