With the daily rise of AI in our everyday lives, it’s becoming easier to take the so called easy route.
When you can ask a question and get back the exact answer you are looking for, life seems simple. The AI is doing all the work. But there is a critical flaw in that thinking.
You are now assuming that the AI is perfect. It can never make mistakes, or more possibly hallucinate the answer you desire. You are also assuming that the AI can do the work you can do better than you.
There is no doubt that AI can be faster. But it also creates a shortcut in the brain. No longer is the process hard to find a successful answer. No more library book research or Google searches. Your brain is given that instant high of success. And in turn you crave it more and faster.
New research from MIT shows that people who use AI to complete their work on a regular basis are starting to get actively lazy about the work they do. And a large percentage of AI work used in blog articles and social posts can actually seem lifeless and less converting. In the end, are we even growing as a person when AI does all the hard work for us?
Even worse, there is an alarming number of users of AI who don’t even click on the citations provided. They believe the answer given is correct. No verification needed.
So now the AI is collecting (or stealing in the eyes of many) the hard work others completed, repacking it and giving it directly. No compensation or thank you. For bloggers that rely on search traffic, research from Cloudflare shows that AI is replacing search at an alarming rate. And when the answer is grabbed from your hard work, you don’t see a benefit anymore.
There are lots of flaws in the AI ecosystem we are creating. Ones that will need ironed out before our small businesses and homesteads take the hit. Will it happen, who knows?
Marketing takes a lot of time. It relies on us knowing our target audience and putting in time. There is no quick shortcut to success. And while AI might enhance your workflow, it can never replace you in the driver’s seat.
Only you can decide how much AI should be used in your business. But I strongly encourage you not to forget the human element when talking to your audience. Because just like the horrible phone prompts of “listen careful as our menu as changed” when nothing did, to the fake platitudes we hate from big companies, your customers can smell AI fakery. Genuine will always win out over fake. And hard work will be rewarded. Choose your shortcuts wisely to stay relevant in the game.