Friend admits to use AI for everything

I met up with an old buddy that I haven’t seen in a while over the weekend. He travels more for work than anyone I know, which makes finding time to catch up a tad bit difficult. 

Anyway, one of the first things he said to me was about how he fears AI is gonna take over the world. It’s hard to disagree with him on that end. 

I mean, check out a couple of the latest AI headlines from the world: 

* An AI LARPing as Game of Thrones’ Daenerys Targaryen convinced a poor 14-year-old boy to off himself, so they could “finally meet” (and now the company behind the AI chatbot is trying to claim AI has free speech, a natural human right

* There’s also the alarming news from Palisade Research that found out multiple AI’s, and especially OpenAI’s ChatGPT, intercepted orders to shut down - and, in a way, became sentient. If not sentient, at least defiant - which ain’t exactly the best case scenario for the future. 

And then there’s the unavoidable fact that AIs are almost completely created by corporations. Corporations rarely, if ever, actually have your best intentions at heart because they practice a demented, completely bastardized version of capitalism that’s completely removed from the customer benefits of capitalism. Not to mention… corporations themselves barely have control over the AIs they’re creating. 

All good reasons to be scared about AI.

But there is a bit of hope: Since corporations are leading the “AI revolution,” and really shoving it down our throats, the public, in large part, have not adopted AIs yet. While I get occasional help from an AI bot, it’s far from being able to write copy that entertains and educates and persuades the way I’ve honed. 

In other words, most of the hype around AI is created by corporations desperate to make their investment profitable - it doesn’t have the kind of organic, grass roots support that the internet did in the 90s (even though the desperate corporations are eager to make that comparison). 

Back to my friend… 

I thought it was kinda weird for him to say that AI was gonna take over the world within the first few minutes of us seeing each other in a bit. 

But after chatting some more, it became obvious why he has this fear:

He uses AI for literally everything. 

He’s in a quite different business than anything I’ve had an intimate relationship with. The company sells asphalt for behemoth companies’ parking lots - like Walmart and Target. And he’s a project manager slash engineer.

This niche is an ultra B2B niche with massive-is-an-understatement deals. And so, when he’s talking back and forth to customers, he uses AI to write his response email (and even read the client’s email). 

When he needs help analyzing data, he uses AI. 

When he has any sort of project he’s uncomfortable with or excited about, he turns to AI first. 

So, it makes sense that he’d be extra worried about AI. 

But for the average joe?

AI isn’t being adapted like the hype would convince you to believe it is. 

The backlash against Duolingo, who boldly claimed to be the first AI-first language-tech company, proves this case. 

And more importantly? 

It’s far from profitable yet. 

And so - while I think you’re justified in being a little creeped out by AI, we’re still years away from anything potentially lethal to civilization. 

And who knows? 

It might just fizzle out of marketing hype like social media, chatbots, and Watson for Oncology (a failed AI from yesteryear) have done recently. 

Which brings me to the long-winded copywriting lesson:

Use hype at your own risk - often, layering on too much hype that can never be realized creates a poor general experience, causes refunds galore, and makes anyone paying attention feel silly for even believing half of the hype. 

It’s usually more persuasive (if you’re interested in loyal and long-time repeat customers) to take away hype because it makes whatever you’re promoting more believable, and thus, credible. 

John