Hot Take: A.I. is Killing Company Culture

Each day I wake, I slump out of bed to find my husband sitting on the couch, waiting with a warm cup of coffee to watch the morning news together. Headlines of A.I. have been a hot topic in the recent months, outside of the government shutdown. AI singers. Robotic actors. The question begs, “Is A.I. Taking Over Hollywood?” My take: A.I. is taking over the world, and not in a good way. 

It’s extraordinarily easy to plug a prompt into an automated machine and receive a direct output that is clean and mostly accurate. I’d be lying if I said the platform is not enticing. It’s so intriguing, it’s almost too good to be true. Get an assignment. Plug into a chatbot. Voila! A complete resource filled with best practices, well-written sentences, and sometimes eye-catching designs. What isn’t to love about that? My negative Nancy mindset: everything. 

ChatGPT and Gemini are great — in moderation. (And yes, I used an em dash without the use of a bot). I relate the automated platforms to the usage of Tylenol, non-politically, of course. If you take Tylenol every day, eventually your liver will decay. Too much of anything is typically a bad thing. The overuse of smoking can lead to cancer. The intake of Vitamin C can lead to canker sores. Walking on the same uneven ground can create a limp and a bone-on-bone knee replacement. Everything in this world should be completed in moderation. The same goes for a new, unregulated practice in content creation. I am aware that my education in communication fuels my angst towards this new wave. “The robots are coming for our jobs.” While I once thought that was a fear created by The Jetsons, I’ve started to collect tin-foil as of late. 

In recent years, I’ve noticed a correlation between similar beliefs and a similar level of education. People who tend to see the bigger picture (and I’ll leave that line to be decided on) are often well-traveled and educated with higher degrees. Now, that’s not to say degrees make you smarter, because many credentials exist without critical thinking, just as some people without initials behind their name are the smartest people I know. They learned to apply themselves in the real world, and sell their work ethic to employers fortunate to have them. In conversation, I’ve noticed those professionals who’ve witnessed the change in typewriters to computers, calls to texting, and office to remote work, see the dangers ahead. The examples above were once taboo, but are now mainstream. The difference between those innovations to today’s world of artificial intelligence? Regulation. Private information is no longer private; it’s sold to the highest bidder. A.I. is not a colleague, it’s your frenemy. The “best friend” who digs for more information, just to benefit themselves. To tell you what you want to hear and not what you should hear. There’s a difference. While the prompts’ responses are perfectly scripted, they typically contain an overload of fluffy information, often inaccurate because they are repeating whatever is inputed. More importantly, I see A.I. as a vice for the overworked. Every shortcut has a downfall. If you cut a physical corner out of your jog, you won’t be well-trained for the marathon.  The same can be said for the use of artificial intelligence. If you utilize A.I. to write your content, your muscle memory of creativity no longer exists to reach the micro populations with niche issues. You become generic. You become replaceable. You become just another small voice in a world with many loud, innovative campaigns. You need real people, with real experiences for your messaging to stand out. 

The scenario I’m about to describe is a bit abstract. Stick with me. It may be a bit deep, but I view A.I. as a new drug on the market. Your friends introduce you to it. You gather together to tighten up the arm brands and shoot up the intoxicating feeling of being heard, to have scripted answers to life questions, and to ultimately feel accomplished. But what happens when we overuse the hypothetic drug. We lose muscle. We lose wellness. We see our friends’ lives change, and typically not in a good way. We become addicted and forget what life was like before. Then, the side effects hit. The lack of empowerment. The isolation of robotic conversation. What happens when the leader of the mechanical strategy is removed or finds a new gateway toxin? We are either left behind with our creativity stripped, or we hop on the next train to The Grass is Always Greener-Ville. That said, A.I. should be a choice, not a job requirement. 

A.I. is not going away. It’s going to increasingly become more of our day to day. Currently, I see A.I. as a crutch to those who want to check boxes, rather than check success. However, a positive use of the robotic help is to check patients into a doctor’s office. Search the web for peer-reviewed articles. Offer ideas for messaging when a writer is in a slump. I ask, not to eliminate A.I., but to use it in moderation and understand the nuances before we march full steam ahead. Don’t drink the kool-aid just yet. 

Keep the art of music alive. Appreciate the skill behind a clever catchphrase. Beam the light of a creative’s pride. You never know when Keeping Up With the Jones may fade out of style.