To use AI, or not to use AI, that is the question?
While typing some AI prompts into ChapGPT recently, I recalled the phrase, Fake it until you make it. The AI answers that were coming back had all the confidence you get from someone bluffing their way through a presentation. The sort of person, when challenged on the accuracy of their statements, would happily reply “If you don’t like my facts I have others…”
The more sycophantic AI becomes with replies like, “Great question!” or “I really think you’re onto something here,” the more it feels like “Fake it until you make it.” This seems to reflect the current state of the AI industry in general, where many companies are promising big and failing big. Building up a hype bubble around the notion that AI “knows” or “understands” what it’s doing and saying. While most people know that’s not the case, when you are using a chat bot it certainly does feel like you are talking to a real person. In reality AI is simply talking digital fragments and gluing them together in the most logical way. It is amazing technology but it’s in no way thinking or self aware.
So today I have dropped a new slide into my deck advising against using AI-generated images, due to credibility issues. Add to this other concerns around copyright theft and other morally ambiguous aspects of AI, I think it’s valid advice. Presentations using AI images don’t inspire the same trust as those with original content.
My advice on this is the same as most ethical decisions, try and avoid it, but if you can’t, don’t sweat it. Make it your first option to seek out good original photos or illustrations first, before grabbing something made with AI.
