Oh My… A.I.
I swear that I am not a “glass is half full” person. When asked this question during job interviews, my answer reveals my perspective as a science enthusiast and abstract thinker:
“The glass is always full. What is it filled with?
In this case, half liquid and half air.”
So what is Artificial Intelligence (AI), and what does it contribute to the vast vessel of professional communications? What is it filled with? Is that substance hot or cold? Is it fluid and useful, or verbose hot air?
My first perception of AI was a touch apprehensive of replacing human cognition with automation, but as time progressed, I approached AI as a new egg to crack and learn more about. At that time, I was juggling my full-time job with learning how to code and trying to understand the all-important “why” behind programming.
I have some years in electronic journalism, during which I covered the best of things and the worst of things, delivering thousands of news stories in the number one U.S. market, the New York tristate area. That experience prepared me for strategic initiatives and interactions that we conduct through public relations, whether that is internal or external relations, global outreach, business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), and crisis communications. I’ve been called “negative” for checking potential downsides of a situation like a soccer goalkeeper fiercely protecting their goal-line, but my goal was to protect community partners, clients, and organizations from bad PR. Pessimist? No. Prepared? Yes.
That said, I am generally skeptical of the hype surrounding new products and releases. As a potential customer and especially as a techie, I take time to thoroughly research product and competitors and dig way deeper before I consider a purchase. I am the hardball consumer that notoriously punts aggressive salespeople, and they hate me for it. I track attentive — and HUMAN — customer service and resolution.
Before I consider “buying” into AI, first I must research.
I was deeply saddened when I was contacted by my alma mater about its scheduled plans to sunset its longtime, award-winning communications department (and kudos to Hofstra University for nabbing all those new communications students). For my capstone project, it was the perfect moment to finally nosedive into AI and its impact within my field.
Yeah, well… Then came the BOOM and monumental dam break of news coverage following the November 30, 2022 release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, its subsequent updates and competition, and the resulting tsunami of public impact and tech industry fallout. The unprecedented ethics and legal ramifications are still unfolding. There are thousands of AI technology articles, case studies, litigation, podcasts and other multimedia. I realized that I needed a deadline for my project research, yet still be able to accommodate late-breaking developments.
As I write this, there are two historically significant cases under review by the Supreme Court of the United States, each with intense scrutiny and overlapping factors that may intrinsically decide both cases and also influence AI. Many groundbreaking cases have followed, testing the limits of data privacy, trademark, copyright, and intellectual property.
Why so much emphasis on legality? Because legal clearance and impact are heavily weighted in professional-level communications. They are closely connected. They share the same glass. Cheers!
