Generative AI is not available to you – so is your reluctance to embrace it

I’m a author and at all times have been. My writing skills are undeniably central to my profession as an internal public relations leader and communications strategist. Admittedly, I scoffed at the idea of ​​generative AI appearing in my work. How can a soulless machine match my creative abilities? I finally realized that the threat to my profession wasn’t from AI, but from my reluctance to embrace it.

Like many, I have been working for artificial intelligence firms for years. I have been working with dozens of AI-based applications long before OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022, which sent the world into a frenzy of fear and excitement.

Recently, at an all-worker marketing meeting, we were asked how often we use gen AI in our work. Everyone replied that they literally use it every day – except me. There are times when you want to stand out from the crowd. This wasn’t one of them. Suddenly I felt like an uncle who still didn’t want to buy a smartphone.

Abandon pretentious skepticism

I approached my first conscious encounter with a large language model (LLM) with a mixture of condescension and fear. Certainly no machine could replicate my skilled wit and the nuances of my prose, meticulously crafted and tailored to a specific purpose. The concept that I needed help from anyone or anything to do my best job was an insult to my knowledge and pride. I also didn’t want to be seen as taking shortcuts.

I quickly thought back to how my writing had impacted the trajectory of my life. Would I get into Cornell if everyone used AI to create great college essays? Has one of my best skilled strengths been democratized, cut into small, accessible pieces and distributed to the masses? I had the impression that the talent I had been cultivating for years was now available to anyone with just one click.

Existential fear flashed in and out of my head.

Why was I so resistant to adopting AI in my work? It doesn’t take AI to work out where my fear got here from – the misconception that AI will replace me, or worse, make me average slightly than higher. I saw AI-powered writing as a personal trick, a harbinger of the redundancy of my craft. I used to be too afraid of the risks to my profession to imagine the advantages.

A fall for the enemy

Faced with a growing to-do list and a latest balancing act between returning from maternity leave and an expanded role as a public relations leader at a publicly traded technology company, I opened Jasper A.I.

I admit that I smiled broadly when I saw some of the functionalities. Change of tone? Is this artificial intelligence emotionally intelligent? Maybe greater than some former colleagues. I began with a blank screen. I began writing a few lines and asked the AI ​​to finish the text for me. I basked in the schadenfreude of his failure.

It summarized what I wrote at the top of the document and I simply spat it out below. Ha! I proved my superiority. I returned to my cave, denying myself and my organization the advantages of this transformative technology.

The next time I used Gen AI, something modified in me. I spotted how necessary prompting is. You cannot just type in a few initial sentences and expect the AI ​​to understand what you want. He still cannot read our minds (I do not think so). However, there are dozens of templates that the AI ​​understands. PR professionals have templates for press releases, media appearances, crisis communications statements, press kits and more. There are countless tools to discover. Suggestions can make the difference between whether AI improves your writing and you’ll waste a lot of time.

Today’s models can write coherent narratives, use industry jargon accurately, match tone, and reflect any writing style. I might never copy and paste his work directly, as the AI ​​may violate copyrights and hallucinate lies, but it provides a great place to begin and often overcomes the initial “blank page” battle of simply sitting down and starting to write. Even the AI ​​query itself forces you to make a decent outline, which is a great place to begin for most writing projects. The impact on my time management and productivity has been striking.

By using Gen AI, I felt like I had an antidote to author’s block.

I discovered the first officer on my PR team who never takes break day.

Raising the bar

Generation AI capabilities are making their way into countless business applications outside of writing-intensive skilled domains like mine – and for good reason. Here’s my advice on how to come to terms with these technologies:

1. No matter what you do, stop swimming against the current. It will drag you down and take your profession with it. You have to ride this wave and master it.
2. Generative AI will not be your competitive advantage. Instead, it will likely raise the bar for everyone, moving the goalpost for your achievements whether you like it or not.
3. Don’t just repeat AI content. It is obvious, detectable and adds no value. Instead, use gen AI correctly to make what you’re already doing higher and faster.
4. We don’t know how we’ll be using gen AI in five years (or even next yr), but we are able to make certain that almost everyone reading this can be using it – whether or not they know it. or not. Artificial intelligence can be integrated in a holistic, human-centric and seamless way into the applications we use at work and in on a regular basis life, as an essential a part of the systems we cannot see but that shapes our interactions.

As with many things in life, the key to staying current is adaptability and a willingness to embrace change. People are resilient. AI won’t come for us. It comes because of our inefficiency. Grab these tools with each hands and make them work for you.

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