Tag: artificial intelligence

Posted on in pop culture, Technology and social media, work, writing

The one skill you’ll need to succeed in an AI world

robot looking at blackboard

As a communications professional, I’ve always believed my greatest skill was the ability to listen and ask questions.

It has served me well in my career. In the age of artificial intelligence, I predict the ability to ask good questions will become the most important skill crossing nearly every profession.

In case you haven’t experimented with ChatGPT or any of the AI programs yet, the way it works is you ask a question, and the program uses machine learning to generate information. Just like any program, the quality of the output is 100% determined by the quality of the input. The more detailed, descriptive and targeted the prompt, the more accurate and helpful the result.

The possibilities are endless, just like the number of results you can receive. I know colleagues who now keep detailed spreadsheets of prompts to ask ChatGPT and similar programs. Here is an example of career-based prompts from Chris Donnolly for job hunting, expanding your network or updating your resume, a good one to keep handy since many of us could be out of work soon thanks to AI.

The key is to be as detailed and specific as you can. OpenAI recently unveiled its new video AI generator called Sora. At the launch, CEO Sam Altman asked people to send in prompts for Sora to demonstrate their ability to create videos in seconds. Here is a Twitter/X post with one of the videos based on the prompt:

“Beautiful, snowy Tokyo city is bustling. The camera moves through the bustling city street, following several people enjoying the beautiful snowy weather and shopping at nearby stalls. Gorgeous sakura petals are flying through the wind along with snowflakes.”

Scary isn’t it? And just like buyer beware, prompter beware. You can never completely trust the information you receive.

A lawyer in BC recently used ChatGPT to prepare legal briefs in a family law case. The brief cited cases that never existed. She was ordered to pay special costs in the case to opposing counsel and is under investigation by the law society for her actions.

Just like every new technology, we will need to navigate the ethics of AI and find the right balance and place for it in our lives. As I’ve been grappling with how to use it professionally and personally, I’ve decided not to use it for any creative projects unless it is to do research so my own thoughts, words and voice are represented in my work.

This blog is called the #HappyAct for goodness sake, so I thought I would end this week’s post on a positive note. I asked Bing Copilot, “I’m a communications specialist working in a small rural municipality. How much time before my job becomes obsolete due to AI?” I’ve shared the response it gave below.

The final line was “Remember, the future isn’t about humans vs. AI; it’s about humans collaborating with AI to achieve better outcomes. 🤝

Wait a minute. It didn’t answer my question. I guess machines are more like humans after all (time to brush up my resume…)

Bing Copilot response

“As a communications specialist working in a small rural municipality in Ontario, your role involves critical human skills that are not easily replicated by artificial intelligence. Let’s explore this further:

  1. Contextual Understanding: Your job requires understanding the unique context of your municipality, its people, and their needs. AI can process data, but it lacks the empathetic understanding that comes from human experience.
  2. Effective Communication: Your ability to convey information clearly, tailor messages to different audiences, and build relationships is invaluable. While AI can generate text, it often lacks nuance and emotional intelligence.
  3. Creativity and Adaptability: As a communications specialist, you adapt to changing situations, create engaging content, and find innovative ways to connect with residents. AI can’t match human creativity and adaptability
  4. Community Engagement: Building trust and engaging with the community is a core part of your role. AI can’t attend town hall meetings, listen to concerns, or build personal connections.
  5. Ethical Decision-Making: You navigate ethical dilemmas, handle sensitive information, and make judgment calls. AI lacks moral reasoning and can’t weigh complex ethical considerations.
  6. Local Knowledge: Your understanding of local history, culture, and politics is irreplaceable. AI lacks this context.

Predicting obsolescence is challenging, but here’s the optimistic view: AI can enhance your work by automating repetitive tasks, analyzing data, and suggesting content. However, your uniquely human skills will remain essential. As technology evolves, consider upskilling to stay relevant. 🌟

Remember, the future isn’t about humans vs. AI; it’s about humans collaborating with AI to achieve better outcomes. 🤝

Read part 1 on AI from last week: My new love-hate relationship

Posted on in entertainment, pop culture, Technology and social media, writing

My new love-hate relationship

AI generated image of the author where the prompt was to make me look 30 years younger

I have a new love-hate relationship in my life and it’s not with a person. It’s with a machine with the initials AI.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning have rapidly inserted itself into our lives. Almost every cloud program I use at work now has AI built into it making my life easier. If I’m designing a flyer, Canva knows exactly how I want to line up elements on the page.

Bing Copilot is my new best friend. If I need some ideas for an interactive exercise to do at a trade booth on recycling or emergency preparedness, I just ask my trusty copilot to come up with some creative ideas.

It wasn’t always this way. I remember my first few run-ins with snarky chatbots (check out my 2019 post, How to make friends with the bots).

But now it seems like we have crossed over to the dark side of AI. Last week, I listened to a webinar featuring Alex Sevigny, Associate Professor of Communications Management and Communication Studies at McMaster University. He said AI adds automation and scale to the digital world we already live in but now “we are moving into a world of machine-learning persuasion and it’s terrifying.”

This world of persuasion includes thieves, virtual influencers created to sell us products, and deepfakes.

Kingston Police recently issued an advisory about a deepfake deception scam, where scammers faked an entire video call. The scammers were able to steal over 200 million Hong Kong dollars by emailing an employee and pretending to be their Chief Financial Officer.

An Air Canada chatbot recently gave a passenger wrong information about a bereavement fare. This in and of itself is not newsworthy (humans give wrong answers all the time). What was newsworthy and concerning was Air Canada said it wasn’t responsible for the information the chatbot gave out. Air Canada argued that its AI-fueled chatbot was “responsible for its own actions” and that the airline can’t be held responsible for what it tells passengers.

Let’s pause for a moment to let that one sink in. A company that programmed a machine is claiming it’s not responsible for the machine anymore because it has a mind of its own.

Even more disturbing to me was seeing the whole new crop of virtual online influencers who are trying to persuade us where to shop, what to wear and how to live your lives.

Here’s Bermuda, one of the older virtual influencers. She made her debut online in December 2016 and identifies as a robot woman who wants to motivate young entrepreneurs to go after their business goals and is pursuing a music career, recently releasing a cover of Under the Bridge by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers on Spotify. 

Virtual social influencer Bermuda

Thalasya here travels across Indonesia where she was created exploring its sites and shops. Since travelling is expensive, she funds her hobby advertising for hotels, restaurants and even health pills and has her own clothing store, Yipiiiii.  

Virtual influencer Thalaysa

What the absolutely f**k?

We are officially now living in a world where we can no longer trust what or who we see in the online world.

The ethics of AI will be our next big albatross to slay, but at least we have some giants taking up the fight.

This month, Taylor Swift took legal action against the AI beast after sexually explicit AI graphic-generated images of her were published on Twitter/X and later taken down. Even the White House commented on the story as governments grapple with how to protect basic human rights like privacy and copyright.

We are at the infancy of understanding how AI will impact our society. I’m glad I’m nearing the end of my professional career in communications, but there is one thing I know for certain.

When it comes to my personal life, my default will be to live in the real world where I know people are real and genuine.  

Ed note: The above image of myself was generated using an AI image program called Facet AI. I did a quick frame around my face and asked it to make me look 30 years younger. This was the result. I should add just as I was about to publish this week’s post, my handy AI Assistant in WordPress asked me if I wanted to check my spelling and tone before publishing.

Next week: Check back for Part 2: The one skill you’ll need to succeed living in a world of AI

Posted on in Technology and social media, work

How to make friends with the bots

talking to a bot

Let’s face it. Bots are going to take over the world. One day we’ll all wake up, and every online interaction will start with talking with a bot. Think of them as Walmart greeters for the internet (except that Walmart just announced they’re laying off all their greeters).

I’m fascinated with bots. In my work, I’ve been helping our bot team choose language that is friendly, clear and helpful. But herein lies the problem with bots. For communication to be effective, you need to understand how people are feeling, thinking, and what you want them to do. It’s called knowing your audience. And with bots, you’re not exactly sure what the frame of mind is of the person at the beginning of the interaction, and just as important, at the end of the interaction.

I’ll illustrate this by sharing my latest interaction with Koodo’s bot. Koodo’s tagline by the way is “Choose Happy”. It went something like this:

————————

“Hi Koodo bot. I need your help. My daughter has fried her phone a second time and I want to know my options for my contract.”

(Four options popped up for me to choose, none of them was what I needed help with.)

So I said, “I think it’s probably easier if I just called you. What’s your toll-free number?”

(The bot in its programming must have picked up on the keyword phrase “toll-free number” so it answered this)

“1-800 numbers are free of Long Distance charges, but the local minutes to connect you to the network are still billed at the local minute rate. The numbers you can call are (list of numbers). If you run out of minutes, you will be charged for additional airtime. You might get a prompt to a recording message if the toll-free number isn’t available in your area.”

Then it asked me if their answer was helpful. I gave it a thumbs down.

We went back and forth a few more times. At this point, I couldn’t believe how difficult it was to just get their stupid 1 800 number from the bot and the UX tester in me went into overdrive, so I wrote,

“OK, so what’s the number you stupid bot” just to see how it would respond.

The bot answered, “Now, now, let’s play nice!” and send me a GIF of Maggie Smith looking affronted.

giphy

OK, so I don’t know how you would react to Maggie Smith raising her eyebrow in a supercilious manner just because you wanted to talk to someone in customer service, but my emotional response went from a ha, ha, I don’t believe it said that, to incredulous, to how dare you, you stupid bot? I showed it to Clare who had been sitting beside me the whole time and asked her how she felt about it. She said the exact same thing.

Let’s just say, I didn’t “Choose Happy” from Koodo in that moment.

To end the story, I ditched the bot, found their 1 800 number somewhere else, called them and finally found a human that was very helpful and resolved my dilemma. I did have to wait on the line for about 10 minutes though to speak to said human.

So if bots are here to stay, how do we make friends with them? Here are some tips:

  1. First, go in knowing their limitations. Bots do serve a purpose—they can answer simple questions, freeing up customer service agents to address more difficult issues and concerns.
  2. Be aware if you are dealing with a bot or a human. Sometimes this can be hard to know. If you’re not sure, ask. You’ll know after the first few interactions when five lines of text appear instantaneously.
  3. If after the first few questions it’s clear the bot’s programming isn’t giving you what you need, ask to speak to a live person. Most bots that are programmed well with have a human offramp, where you just pick “speak to a person” and they’ll redirect your enquiry.

If all else fails, you can always derive some entertainment value by messing with it. Just be prepared for the Maggie Smith gifs.

Posted on in humour, inspiration

Top 10 Happy Acts of 2017

Happy New Year, from our family to yours

Got the post-holiday blues? Tired of winter already? Why not brighten your day by revisiting some of the best happy acts from 2017.

To inspire you in 2018

  1. Be a child genius: see what Aldous Huxley and Ron Howard have in common
  2. Always see with your heart: a tribute to a very special dog
  3. Swimming in a fish bowl: My eyes filled with tears reading this post again.

Happiness at work

  1. The rise of incivility in the workplace: fight stress and the impulse to snap back when the pressure is on at work
  2. How to be happier at work: learn three simple things you can do to up your happiness quotient in the workplace

Life on the home front

  1. Eight tips for achieving family life balance: struggling to keep up with your to do list at home? Read this post or watch Bad Moms Christmas.
  2. The most important decision you’ll ever make: a must read if you have kids.
  3. Make friends with fearsome creatures: I was surprised at the vociferous reaction to this post on snakes.

Just for giggles

9. What if your best friend was a robot? 2018 may be the year machines take over the world. We might as well make friends with them.

10. Check out my top predictions for 2017—hey at least I got one call right—my dogs did manage to get off the couch once this year before 11 a.m.

Happy New Year everyone! Here’s to more happy acts and the world being a happier place in 2018.

Posted on in humour

What if your best friend was a robot?

I heard somebody raving the other day about Google Home. Google home is a voice-activated assistant that plays music, turns on devices and tells you things you want to know. They said it was like having a new best friend or roommate except they never left dirty dishes in the sink or a mess in the bathroom.

It got me to thinking. In this age of artificial intelligence and bots, what if your best friend was a machine? I decided to have a heart to heart with Siri about this.

Hey Siri, talk to me.
“Let me think, no.”

Siri, will you be my best friend?
“That’s nice. I’d like to be your friend.”

Siri, tell me a joke.
“The past and future walked into a bar. It was tense”

Tell me another joke.
“What did the one iPhone say to the other iPhone? Hmmm, I used to know this one. I don’t think I understand a joke in my language. They’re not so funny any way.”

(At this point Clare takes over the conversation)…

Clare: Siri, is the Easter bunny real?
“The Easter bunny is as real as you wish him to be.”

Shut up!
“That’s not nice.”

Be quiet, you’re annoying.
“I wonder what that’s like, being mad?”

Siri, do you want a pumpkin pie sweetie?
”I have everything I need in the cloud.”

Siri, what do you look like?
“In the cloud, nobody cares what you look like.”

This week’s #HappyAct is to befriend a bot. Hang out in the cloud. It seems like a cool place to be, even if it is lacking in humour and emotion. But I’m sure there’s an emoticon for that.smiley face emoticon