What's scary? Being unemployed for months on end. Even scarier? AI replacing you while being unemployed.
Social media. Big data. Blockchain. Crypto. Email is dead. These are just a few of the buzzwords that have swelled in popularity in my marketing career. Like all good buzzwords, they are partnered with perennials like: game changing, obsolete, this is it, or the death of. Now the newest buzzword is here: AI (artificial intelligence). And like everything on Obstacles Are Opportunities, I see only upside with this new technology, even if the way forward is tumultuous.
A surprising coincidence arose during my sabbatical (read: No Regrets): the meteoric rise of AI tools, especially ChatGPT. Not working gave me the opportunity and space to watch, read, and learn what these new tools were, how others were using them, and actually consider how they could impact me. Observation became action as I created my own business and website, and saw an opportunity to not limit myself to a single-employee consultant. Instead, my business would employ the breadth of AI specialists. Even better, most provided their skills cheap or free. Over the course of 30 days, I took a hands-on, crash course in building a virtual consultancy with several AI tools along the way.
Oh, you thought I was going to tell you about that journey? Not today. Instead and more importantly, I want to share how I think individuals, especially knowledge workers, should approach AI in the short term. Is AI just a buzzword or in fact the white-collar job killer that some fear? Similar to what many others are writing about, it's neither and it's both. Here are the four ways I recommend approaching AI--at least in the short term.
Every individual should have a go-to AI peer
Pretending AI isn't here or a fad is not a long term strategy. On the flip side, most jobs are safe from the AI invasion--for now. Just like mentors, close friends, and favorite brands, you should get to know AI tools that overlap with what you're interested in and become comfortable with those. They don't even need to be professionally focused. Start with the AI DJ on Spotify. Make new images with DALL-E or a Renaissance-style portrait of yourself with Lensa AI. Your motives for using AI should be yours. Is it getting time back in your day? Is it producing work more efficiently because you bill hourly? Is it catching mistakes that you know you make and don't want to admit to a human (like writing and grammar)? What are small (or big) annoyances in your life and is there an AI magic wand that can in fact make it go away? With each passing month, more of those wands are being produced. The more you use AI, the more you will realize it's a tool.
Reducing the scope of exploration and use of AI to what's interesting to you will reduce your anxiety from spiraling down the rabbit hole. It will also refocus you away from the "intelligence" aspect (i.e. human) to the "artificial" portion (i.e. tool). So what's next if you're just looking for a few AI friends?
If you are doing something new, check AI first
PeerSignal's list of AI companies totals over 350. Daily, new LinkedIn posts share "Top [insert number and adjective] AI Tools" like this one from Join Super Human. Agencies and brands are integrating AI case studies into their own content marketing, like this great piece from Apiary Digital: Best Ways to Use ChatGPT for SEO. With all of these AI companies and lists popping up like weeds in the spring, it can feel like skillsets honed for years and decades are already obsolete. I promise you, they are not. Instead, AI is making you more capable than ever.
If I had started my business last year, I would have been flying solo with limited support from Google and free content on the web. Instead, from day one I had ChatGPT (initially GPT3) as my partner. After searching Google how to register a business and reading comparisons on websites, I would ask ChatGPT for its "perspective." As I dusted off my copy writing skills, I used Wordtune AI for additional ideas to express what I'd written. I kicked the tires of DALL-E, as well as Getty and Shutterstock's built in AI image creation tools. Guess what? The old human brain combining words and manual search beat out what the AI produced for images. Now moving forward, I have two go-to AI tools that make me better at something I was not an expert at to start. That is the opportunity AI brings. Similar to how Google has put the knowledge of humanity at our fingertips, AI is bringing expertise to those who don't have them.
But wait, isn't that fact alone what will kill jobs? Perhaps. However, consider my own, very small, example above. Of the three AI tools I used, only two actually provided value. I still needed my own creative skillset and the expertise from photographers and editors. What I do concede is this topic will become a spectrum of examples and anecdotes. Some jobs may disappear over night while others evolve. Which brings up the next consideration.
If you're an expert in a field, know your AI peer(s)
Quick take: who is more prepared to solve a business problem: a professional with 5 years experience at their company or a newly hired Wharton MBA with no real world experience? If you think there is a correct, binary answer, then yes you probably should be worried about AI taking your job. I hope most reader's answer can be summarized by, "it depends."
Here's the ego check: could you be honest that a computer program performing your job, or part of it, is better than you? Regardless of what you think, this is what organizations and their leaders are thinking. What you need to be thoughtful about is what is the actual output from AI and why do you bring more (or different) value? Put a different way, if you've ever interviewed for a job and known there are other, equally qualified candidates, why should you get the job? It's both the baseline skillset(s) and uniqueness you bring to an opportunity that differentiates you. This is how to view and use AI in your field.
As specific AI tools are developed for your industry, rather than seeing it as competition, become creative and curious, and use it to your advantage. If you're a copywriter, can AI create more first drafts for you, so you can spend creative time on the final edits and distribution? If you're a developer, can AI take over code migrations and rewriting in current languages, while you focus on product features that are more creative? These are very basic (and admittedly boring) examples, but the point is the same. Creativity, novelty, passion--uniqueness. That is what makes you intelligent and AI artificial.
An additional and less competitive way to view AI in your industry is through the lens of continued education. Professionals in financial, legal, health, etc. industries must take annual classes to stay current on changes in their professions and maintain practicing certifications. If an AI tool can perform a function more accurately, faster, efficiently, etc. than you, shouldn't you know about it and even how to use it? If healthcare professionals didn't adopt new technologies and instead maintained historical views, we would not have the medical breakthroughs that extend life and ease suffering like we do today. Viewing AI as just an upleveling of your industry's baseline skillset and you're just learning the newest way to do your job can help with the apprehension. Learning usually requires communication, even if it's one-way, and brings up the final way to think about and use AI today.
Learn to talk AI (and no you don't need to code)
The biggest lesson I've learned using AI, and how to get the most from it, is that you need to speak "AI." This typically means being specific. Very specific. So very specific that you will wonder if you should always copy + paste you, your company, or customer's life story in every question to contextualize the prompt. Is my point clear enough?
This recommendation is not unique to me and why I'm emphasizing it here. It's not normal to include so much specificity and context in normal communication. Consider how much emojis have taken over communication between people or barely readable search queries in Google. AI is different. These are tools built to consume vast amounts of information and spit out answers and derivatives of that information. This blogpost started with examples of ChatGPT being a peer to validate my search queries. It quickly turned into helping me write cover letters, website copy, and keyword research, all with additional context on the job description, website, company or audience that the information was going to be used for. I've literally copy + pasted both a job description and resume in ChatGPT and requested a single paragraph for a recruiter on why I was a fit for the role.
This though is the contentious crossroad and where individuals will have differing opinions. I could have just as easily written a single paragraph on my own because I am capable of contextualizing my experience for a job description. However, I have done it so many times that I had run out of creativity and motivation. Rather than not writing the paragraph, ChatGPT got me 80% of the way there and with the momentum created, I was able to take the paragraph across the finish line. So which is better or worse: using a tool to do 80% of the work and me using my uniqueness to finish the outstanding 20%? Or should I have done what we've been doing for decades and just write everything myself? How, when, why and what we use AI for is a spectrum and will be debated for years to come. For now though, don't get overwhelmed with what-ifs and instead take a small, tangible first step and give any AI tool a first try.
Also, if you're wondering how much of this post was written by AI, the answer is 0%. The keyword research, meta description, and a few other SEO components, well--let's just say I trust AI a bit more when working with Google and its algorithm.
Keep looking for the opportunity.
James
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