AI for 1099s
Everyone's putting out a shingle, but what does it really mean to be an AI expert?
When I re-embarked on a fractional practice in January, 2023, I was caught a tetch behind the 8-ball when it came to AI. Don’t get me wrong: I had heard of it of course, even used a few apps for drafting passable SEO-sticky copy, but I hadn’t staked my career on it … yet.
But 2023 truly was the year the AI shell cracked open, and out poured everyone’s pent-up, pre-pandemic-size expectations for an emerging tech that would deliver us new futures (and that wasn’t crypto), followed by the afterbirth of pure panic over becoming replaced at work by an AI application.
All of my projects in 2023 were tinged with talk of Large Language Models (LLMs) and going to market with a Gen AI product, but only few organizations really understood what that meant. Just as when social media or Web 3 became a thing, gurus came out of the woodwork professing to be spiritually one with AI, as if for the past 25 years they’d been hoarding data and custom GPTs in their basements, waiting for this moment to FINALLY bestow upon the world all they already knew about it.
Running a cursory search on LinkedIn for people with AI in their titles or companies generated 5.2 million people, versus “.io,” the web domain of choice among Web3 types, which spawned 244k listings. Indeed, everyone is an AIpreneur, AI Analyst, AI Expert, AI Chef.
I’m just waiting for “The Techy One” to join the Fab Five on Queer Eye who coaches people in prompt engineering; then we’ll know AI has reached cultural phenomenon status.
Free Webinar Wednesday April 24, 12p PT | 3p ET: How can you use Generative AI effectively for your work and life? How can you avoid data exploitation and potential ethical pitfalls? Join Gina Jeneroux, MBA FLPI and Mia Shah-Dand, experts in AI upskilling and ethics, in a discussion for the AI Curious. Moderated by Optionality co-founder Jory Des Jardins, who has repositioned and reinvented her work in multiple emerging tech waves.
Korn Ferry validated that, perhaps we’re a wee bit irrationally exuberant about AI in a recent report:
Discussion of AI on earnings calls has jumped since the launch of ChatGPT last fall. In the fourth quarter of 2023, mentions of the technology on earnings calls of S&P 500 companies hit the second-highest level in ten years. But the tone may be a bit different in this latest earnings period, says Chris Cantarella, global sector leader of the Software practice at Korn Ferry, who expects leaders to temper their comments as reality sets in around the applications, cost, and risks of AI. “Leaders got out ahead of their skis a little bit,” he says. Indeed, the US Census Bureau recently found that just 5.4% of companies use AI to produce goods or deliver services. Interactions with customers, data-security risks, and cost were among the top concerns with deploying AI."
For now let’s assume a handful of us are actual AI experts; a few handfuls of us are actually getting shit done with AI, and the vast majority of us are AI Curious.
Yes, we all know our lives will be—are being—impacted by AI, but many of us are still futzing around for use cases. I’ve noticed a trend in my inbound email and LinkedIn feed of agencies and independent marketing specialists offering to develop content, find me leads, optimize my outreach, using AI. Frankly, I hope I can do all this myself using AI. Why would I pay you to load prompts into chat GPT? My prompts are not always effective (more on that later) but getting better all the time. You offering to do this work for me is like offering to make me dinner by microwaving the vegetables.
I can microwave my own vegetables, thanks.
Poorly extending this simile even further: I may not need your help microwaving the vegetables, but if you can get my kids to eat them, you’re hired!
In other words: Provide outcomes of what you can do with AI that others can’t and you become instantly more valuable.
Before we put out the shingle (or add AI Expert to our LinkedIn titles), let’s look at our use cases and how our existing superpowers coincide with those use cases. Are you a star press release writer? Chat GPT can already do that pretty well. But if you have a unique style and technique that others less linguistically gifted could benefit from, maybe you could create a custom GPT that mimics your style and use it to “do you” at scale.
Right now the best use cases I can think of involve productivity — mine not yours. If you want to hop on the AI bandwagon, show me how to use it properly; how to think about it; how to avoid being left behind at work by it; when to trust it and when not to. And show me when it makes the most sense to rely on myself to get things done.
This week’s Open Thread. In preparation for our webinar this week we’re asking you: What are your Fears, Hopes, and feelings of Relief (if any) around AI? Are you more of one than the others? What do you want to understand better?