I wrote last week about how I’d used a LLM to prepare a post and how I’d used it to work on the content which I then edited. I received quite a few comments which I thought were worth looking at.

Firstly, using these tools to produce whole posts and comments feels very wrong. Another person saw a couple of replies which were fully AI generated and they lacked authenticity and were quite easy to spot as automated and artificial.

In the post I said:

If you work in the knowledge economy, you need to have ABSOLUTE clarity about how you will need to work from now.

Work and Cheese – Andrew Jacobs

Apparently the word ‘absolute’ caused challenge for some people. I did, however, mean it. It is the role of L&D now to understand the impact of these tools on their sectors, functions, and industries. If you don’t, there is a possibility – and in some cases – a probability that your work may be superseded. Not in terms of your job being replaced in one go but elements being sliced away a piece at a time. Diagnostics will be the first to go – data analysis and synthesis will look beyond your learning performance and start working out solutions which your training design won’t fix. You have to look ahead and work out how these tools are going to be used in your workplace. And don’t assume that because they’re not installed on your work devices they won’t be used…I remember the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) arguments from 2005 and am seeing BYOAI happening now.

I was also asked about authenticity, efficiency and how I’m adapting these tools. I am reminded of the tweet/post on Twitter/X by the author, gamer, and translator Joanna Maciejewska:

You know what the biggest problem with pushing all-things-AI is? Wrong direction.
I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.

— Joanna Maciejewska (@AuthorJMac) March 29, 2024

I’m adapting these tools by not using them to do the creative stuff. I enjoy finding images for the blog posts and AI tools have simplified how they’re edited to create a consistent brand and approach. This feeds into efficiency; I can produce a post in a few minutes a day, including the images now, where it was 15-30 minutes in the past.

In terms of authenticity, I NEVER use pure LLM content. I’ll happily ask a number of LLM – Chat GPT, Co-Pilot, Poe, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity – the same question to check my understanding of a topic and kickstart my thinking. I take time to review the responses for myself and make sure it is MY critical thought which considers what might be relevant, appropriate, and something I want to put my name to.

As I mentioned to someone in a call later in the week, assume all these AI tools are interns. They don’t have an emotional bond to you or your company, don’t have the history and experience of you and your work to be able to understand the nuances in your thinking, design, or delivery. Would you trust an intern to produce and present your content unedited, unsupported, with no critical analysis, feedback, or accountability?

There was a comment that humans are necessary, and I couldn’t agree more. If only to work though the cheese.