OPEN THREAD: Fear, Hope, Relief
Feeling all the feels about GenAI, asking all the questions for our webinar this week
This Wednesday afternoon we’re bringing together an AI upskilling expert and an AI ethics expert, along with
as moderator, in order to discern whether there is a productive common ground to be found that lives somewhere between having to be an AI enthusiast, or even evangelist, and an AI skeptic, or even fear monger.To that end, we’d love to hear from you what you’d like to hear this week. What are your fears and hopes? Does anything bring you a sense of relief?
I’ll start, and I hope you’ll add yours:
Fear: My fear is that this is one more way that creatives, from writers to visual artists, get exploited and have their work co-opted without proper consent, compensation, or even credit.
Hope: My hope is that we can do a better job with AI than we did with the social web…having lived through how utopia gave way to dystopia on social media, can we stave off witnessing that same unrealized potential?
Relief: My relief is that I’ve found AI tools that don’t replace my effort, but rather allow me to steer my effort more into areas where I bring unique value. Tasks around editing and posting content, especially audio and video, for example, that once would have taken me many hours, now take a bit of prep, followed by just minutes of AI effort. It truly excites me to offload something that was not my superpower.
Now you go:
And join us at this week’s member webinar by registering here.
Here goes: Fear: That, as with other emerging technologies, AI will reflect the preferences, capabilities, and biases of those who have first access to it. Hope: We can learn from the past to ensure access to all, and early education to all, ensuring my fear does not happen. Relief: Visuals--clearing images for posts, creating compelling visuals with limited tools, presentations, etc, basic text tasks and initial idea generation are things I don't have to cycle on like I used to. AI has shortened the timeframe on all this to both enhance my work and, as you say, Elisa, enable focus on things that I'm good at.
Fear: The continued devaluation of FACTS and RESEARCH and knowing what is actually true versus what is repeated in echo chambers devoid of standards. And yes, also the continued downward compression on content and focused content strategy as being worth investment since you can have it for "free."
Hope: That it doesn't emphasize the worst human instincts and that those who thrive on collecting and withholding power won't figure out how to use it to continue to withhold and collect power. (Oh wait, that's a fear.)
Relief: I have found it very useful for versioning articles I wrote for SEO purposes (where you often need several articles that say almost the same thing) and for giving me a super-quick response when explaining slightly technical or obtuse concepts. I do need to give it a whirl for images and such but haven't tried it yet.