THE LATEST THING AI CAN CREATE IN SECONDS: DIFFICULT CHOICES.
Whether you’re excited by AI or it makes you want to go native on a tropical island, it’s a development that everyone running a business or managing a project needs to have a view on.
If you believe everything you hear, so-called ‘generative AI’ (such as ChatGPT) promises to deliver the greatest leap in productivity for decades. Which sounds like the Holy Grail, until you begin to look a little deeper.
We’ve come up with three scenarios - and there will be many more - which demonstrate that AI could be a source of big, new dilemmas.
1. There is such a thing as being too productive.
SmartCo’s new, digital, brand awareness campaign took off faster than a F-15 fighter jet in a hurry.
The campaign took a matter of seconds for AI to generate and speed wasn’t the only benefit: this campaign stuck to the marketing plan like glue and it engaged with precisely the right volume of customers at all times on all channels.
However, shoulders in the sales department are being shrugged. Sales director, Bob, believes that the process of winning customers is based on interaction, not one-way pushing. And, while SmartCo has changed its way of working by involving AI, customers are just the same as far as he is concerned.
Others are worried that SmartCo isn’t in shape to cope with the huge change that AI will provoke.
The efficiency of AI’s awareness campaign could lead to a leaner department with fewer members of staff, meaning vast savings. However, one of the functions of the marketing department is to innovate with new products and initiatives. A smaller team will be stretched to deliver these.
One solution could be to generate more sales - to justify a bigger department - but this will cost more and results aren’t guaranteed.
So, for SmartCo, AI is a double-edged sword, delivering one benefit and creating additional problems.
2. What if your competitors are also using AI for the same purpose?
FutureCo used AI to develop a new business strategy and it went like a dream.
No midnight oil was burned. Meetings? Not many. And the schedule for implementing the strategy was so consistent, even a sceptic would be forced to be mightily impressed. You might say it was a textbook example of how things should be done.
Which is, potentially, the problem.
There are some people in FutureCo who find this textbook a bit too perfect. They don’t see any personality or anything uniquely to them. In a way, they wanted a bespoke suit but they feel like they ended up with one from the rails of a department store. What’s more, if the competition is also using AI to do the same job, they could be wearing the same suit.
On the other hand, being more reflective and creative would perhaps have led to more distinctive results but would have taken much more time.
So, to FutureCo, AI creates the dilemma of choosing between generic and fast, versus individual and slow.
Machines aren’t good at keeping secrets.
Sally is in Marketing at Tomorrow Inc and she became a big fan of AI when she got ChatGPT to start writing her press releases.
Her latest release pleased her immensely. It was delivered incredibly quickly, was the perfect length and contained all the corporate language and the tone of voice that her boss loves.
This all sounds perfectly innocent and seems to benefit everyone involved. After all, press releases can be a chore, so anything that can automate their production seems like a benefit. And it surely is. But there is a trap here that Sally needs to make sure she hasn’t already fallen into.
One of the reasons her latest release was so good is that Sally actually wrote it. AI learned from her and adopted her style. In effect, a feedback loop had been created in the process, with Sally’s drafts being stored on a server, ready to be used as raw material by anyone. And not just anyone in Marketing at Tomorrow Inc.
If, for any reason, Sally had uploaded anything confidential or revealed something that needed to be patented or protected, this could result in trade secrets being released to the world at large, via AI.
So, to Tomorrow Inc, AI is both a huge time saver and a potential source of a breach of confidence.
If there is a moral to any of these three stories it’s that it’s probably better to think about the consequences of using AI before making the decision to use it, examining the trade-offs and choices you may need to make in the future.
If this is a leap into the unknown, it’s probably better to talk to someone (such as one of Escape Co’s AI experts) before jumping. Their intelligence will certainly not be artificial.
