I’ve started incorporating some AI tools into my workflow, and I’ve not been too concerned about the hype around AI taking jobs. However, it’s not until recently that I started to genuinely worry about what a world with AI will look like. It’s made me question if it’s okay to be authentic; is it okay to be human?
I’d describe myself as being quite comfortable with change, and I think that’s what I like about freelance work: it’s varied, and not all projects are the same. But the addition of AI to everything is starting to feel somewhat overwhelming.
I’ve attended several webinars recently where AI has been force-fed as a catalyst for change. For example, within the recruitment industry, a recommendation is to run your CV through something like ChatGPT. At first, I thought this process might act as a sort of advanced spellcheck. I admit that I find spelling and grammar quite difficult at times. I have used Grammarly for a little while, and I find tools like this can really help. However, when you start asking these tools to change the tone of your writing, the clarity, the structure, it starts to become something that isn’t you anymore. The AI tools are getting better at picking up and mimicking tone, but it feels like we’re going to get to a place where you don’t actually need to write content anymore, just prompts.
As a technical communicator myself, I appreciate how communication and language have changed over the years. When mobile phones first came out, we had text talk; this has advanced with the use of emojis. On the internet, we use Boolean logic to refine searches, and we use programming languages to write applications, so I see the use of prompts as another iteration of how humans communicate using technology. But when you’re using AI to write your CV, you’re using AI to create courses, images, and quizzes, and then using an AI avatar to explain what you’ve done, are we not losing our humanity?
It’s one of these situations where I would like to hope that when people create content, especially for education, they use instructional design foundations, but I can see the attraction of AI to cut corners. I’m not saying that AI can’t be used to create good content, as you can instruct it on the principles and practices to use, but you already need to have that knowledge in the first place to be able to instruct it.
With budgets being slashed and redundancies set to increase this year, quality isn’t at the top of everyone’s list anymore; it’s becoming more about how much content you can create and how quickly you can get it out there. I also see this on LinkedIn, where people post things daily. And yes, I’m not heartless, I understand that it’s hard out there, especially for small businesses, and we all need to advertise our products and services, but I feel that people are just posting for the sake of posting, and most of the time AI has created the post.
I know that not everyone is doing this, but I think I’m seeing it a lot more because AI is making it easier for people to create this content. But what worries me is when the snake starts to eat its own tail, when we’re asking AI to create our content, and then we start asking it to create more content from AI content. What happens then?
On social media, I often see a video of a man reciting the words “We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.” This usually circulates as a joke, a kind of weary badge of honour for people working under pressure with limited resources (hey we’ve all been there and can relate). Lately, though, it feels less like a punchline and more like a reflection of the current moment.
With AI increasingly driving how we work and communicate, the idea of doing more with less has taken on a new intensity. The line between authenticity, efficiency and erasure is getting thinner, and it raises questions about what we’re really building, and who we’re becoming in the process.