Earlier this week, I listened to an Ali Abdaal interview with Kenneth Cukier from The Economist, during which he referred to AI as being nothing more than a “companion”. That’s how we should view it, he says, and it’s what leaders in the field of machine learning and big data deem AI to be - a helpful hand, nothing more.
As things stand at the moment, I think Kenneth’s right. I wouldn’t use AI as a replacement for a human being in my business. I encourage my team to use it to make our processes more efficient and the end goal achievable sooner, but it isn’t a replacement for human creativity in my industry.
Yet.
This is a contentious topic and one which will be highly debated for the foreseeable future. The technology behind AI will also continue to develop rapidly; as much as government intervention might slow the pace of change, nothing is going to stop the march of machine learning in the long run. We’re heading to an inevitable future where ‘the machines’ will take over to a far greater extent than they ever have done. Arguably, we’re there already.
But I’m not scared of AI, and I’ve promised to explain why that’s the case for ages.
During his chat with Ali, Cukier explains that ChatGPT “doesn’t know anything” - it is purely making assumptions based on the data it has gathered. That’s why there’s a label just beneath the text entry field that reads ‘ChatGPT can make mistakes’. It’s an “inference”, nothing more.
We’ve adopted AI at Mark Ellis Media, but I certainly don’t view it as an employee or contractor - I can’t. The way we use AI still lends itself to human input because I can’t run the risk of publishing incorrect, unsubstantiated content (I make those mistakes enough myself).
There are five areas in which we currently use AI in this business:
Article drafting for markellisreviews.com. Following the hit my website sustained after the Google Helpful Content Update, we decided to increase the amount of relevant content being published, without additional input from me. That has come in the form of posts written by someone else, and some AI-generated stuff, which is created as a barebones first draft and polished by a human.
Title ideation for YouTube. Setting titles for YouTube videos is a dark art and one which I don’t think any creator will ever master. It’s a case of second-guessing the YouTube algorithm and audience reaction. It’s damn hard. That’s why I use ChatGPT occasionally to provide inspiration when I’ve run dry.
Video outlines. Mark Ellis Reviews videos are still engineered by yours truly - there is no AI involved (bar the occasional aforementioned title brainstorm). But for Solo Club videos, the loose script is often generated by ChatGPT. If I’m making a video about why creators should publish newsletters, I needn’t waste time writing down five detailed reasons why - that stuff is out there already, and I can add my spin to whatever ChatGPT spits out. This saves a monumental amount of time.
Scripting. The only form of scripting I abide by these days is for some of the short-form videos we publish. We’re investing more time in creating dedicated shorts (rather than chopping up long-form stuff) and, given the brevity of that content, a tight script is often required. ChatGPT is brilliant at turning my rough bullet points into a coherent, engaging script (although I always edit it to a degree).
Podcast editing. Newsflash: the Eight or Sixteen podcast will soon make its debut on YouTube. Do I want to pay someone to manually switch camera angles between Rob and myself for an hour-long episode? Not if AI can do it for us.
As you can hopefully see above, AI plays the role of companion in this business. It gets us to the result quicker, and far more efficiently. It can do this because it has access to more data and processing power than my business does. We’re not even using the paid version of ChatGPT, which means it’s also completely free - save the time someone needs to invest in prompting the machine.
This is why I’m not scared of AI. It has improved my business - not damaged it. Those who are running away from it are running in the wrong direction - it needs to be embraced. Holding onto a belief that AI is akin to cheating or doing your audience a disservice is shortsighted.
Remember: it’s a companion.
I often think about how I would tackle AI if I was still doing my old job, which revolved around creating content for other businesses. I’m fairly sure I would have started by panicking - that’d be natural. However, I’ve historically always entered problem-solving mode pretty quickly after that initial panic stage, therefore I know I’d find a way to make AI work for me and my clients, as opposed to completely replacing my contracts with those businesses.
I’d have used it to create more content for my client. I’d turn it into a positive; you pay me the same fee, and I create more content which will, in turn, help your website work harder for you and produce more leads. Sounds exciting, right? I’m getting excited now, and I don’t even do that kind of work anymore!
With the right controls in place, the future is very bright for AI. But you need to come along for the ride.
P.S. As you may know, creating content like this is something that forms a big part of my career. It wasn't easy reaching this point, however, and my journey of becoming a full-time content creator hasn't been without its hurdles.
That's why I've been working on a project aimed at simplifying the path of turning content creation into a career (for those that have an eye to doing so).
It's called the Creator Academy, and it will feature all the tools, strategies, and resources I wish I'd have known about when I was first starting out. And of course, I'll be there every step of the way to provide personalised feedback, accountability, and coaching.
We'll be launching The Creator Academy at the end of January, and I really can't wait.
If you're interested in learning more about The Creator Academy just click here!