For now, AI’s performance in generating a finished product is at best adequate. What it’s great at doing is acting like a research assistant.
There’s a bit of a backlash against ‘AI’ at the moment, led by the creative industries. This is understandable, but it does have a narrow view of ‘AI’ being something designed to produce the finished product. One day things will change. But for now, in most walks of life, AI’s performance in generating a finished product is at best adequate, and at worst, laughable.
What it is great at doing, as I’ve said before, is acting like a research assistant. The most productive users of AI employ it to do things they could do themselves, but more quickly and at scale. For example, suppose we were looking for some good content to add to our website. We have the expertise to write it, but what we need are some questions to answer. Here’s a little exercise which we can all try. For anyone who isn’t really using AI in this way yet, it should provide some food for thought.
Go to an AI engine such as ChatGPT. Ask it: “List 10 common online ‘how to’ searches related to [some product category you’re involved in].” If you wish, ask it for more than 20, or modify the request however you like.
Now, don’t forget, you’re not asking it to do anything clever, just a bit of research to save you some time. What comes back may be 90% on target or 90% rubbish. This doesn’t matter – it’s simply giving you ideas to choose from. Take one of these which sounds like a good article idea, and ask the AI: “List the top 5 results in Google for the search ‘[your chosen search]’ and in each case summarise the articles which the results link to.”
Again, anyone reasonably bright could do this, but it would take a lot longer than the 20 seconds it takes ChatGPT.
Finally, ask it: “Combine the summaries above and write an outline for an article on [your chosen search] which covers the content of all of them.” It’ll give you a detailed outline for an article, based not on the AI’s own questionable knowledge and priorities, but on what it’s found from the content which is already ranking well in the search results.
Now your unique expertise can step in.