Well, hello there.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a powerful force evolving at the speed of light. As creatives, AI tools promise to help us be more efficient, sort through research, brainstorm ideas, and more. 

But sometimes, I wonder if AI walks a more perilous path. It can also infringe on intellectual property rights, ignore our privacy, and produce robotic content that undermines our trust with our audience. Like the mysterious Force in Star Wars, this power can be used for good or evil.

Which side will you choose? And is it really so black and white? I can see both sides, but I was curious and asked a few creatives in my universe to tell me what they thought of AI and how they use it.

Here’s what they said, plus a few of my own thoughts on the subject. Use the below to light jump ahead or scroll down to read the entire article.

Exploring the Light & Dark Side of AI

A Rey of Hope: The Light Side of AI

Is AI the Droid I’ve Been Looking For? AI for Efficient Workflows

The Force Awakens: Does AI Help with Creativity & Content Creation?

The Outer Rim: How Can AI Help with Research?

I’ve Got a Bad Feeling About This: The Dark Side of AI

It’s a Trap! Will AI Make Us Slackers?

The Dark Side of the Force is Strong with AI: Biases & Ethical Questions

• • How Are AI Tools Being Trained?
  • Is AI a Clone? AI & Copyright.
  • Revenge of The Synthetic Sith: Is AI biased?
  • Attack of the Coded Clones: What About Privacy?
  • Our Only Hope: Ask Questions

Finding the Balance in AI

Is AI the Droid I’ve Been Looking For?

AI for Efficient Workflows

As an in-house front-end web developer for the consumer products company Toto USA, my friend Michael Husson says, “Personally, I feel that it would be in the best interest of any creative professional to familiarize themselves with AI tools and utilize shortcuts to help with workflow—it’s where the industry is moving.”

Personally, one of the reasons I’ve embraced AI is to work faster and smarter. As a one-woman shop, time is a precious resource that’s hard to come by. I tend to have lots of ideas and too little time to execute them.

AI tools like generative expand and generative fill in Photoshop can streamline workflow and save time and money. Removing objects or expanding the background happens in seconds rather than minutes or hours. Cutting out mundane tasks like this helps me focus on doing more for my clients, focus on the creative and strategy more, and meet deadlines faster.

The Force Awakens

Does AI help with Creativity & Content Creation?

I love how AI can jumpstart our imaginations when our brains go dark. “AI Blogging is great for helping springboard your content, as it outlines and writes much of it for you. It also helps when you have writer’s block, as it can generate ideas for starting your writing,” explains Bevan Calo, Owner of the Creative Blade and Digital Media Advisor for Sentara Health.

I’ve started using AI for blogging and creating social media posts for my clients and business. I’ll ask Perplexity or ChatGPT a question to see what it spits out.

Then, I edit or rewrite the response so it has more personality, make any corrections, fact-check it, and then put it into Grammarly so it can correct all my punctuation mistakes. Finally, I proofread it again for mistakes, format, and published it.

Exploring the Outer Rim

How Can AI Help with Research?

Another way the creatives in my orbit are harnessing the power of AI is for research. “I’ve used AI for research, and even though you should fact-check anything it says, it’s very useful for that,” says Lindy Bostrom from Bostrom Graphics in California.

I agree with Lindy. It’s important to approach any AI-generated content with a critical eye and fact-check it against reputable sources. It’s also a huge time saver because it can analyze large amounts of data and pull insights from it. Say you have a survey about your product from 1,000 customers. You can then upload that data into Perplexity, ask you to summarize the sentiments of that survey and create a presentation outline.
AI can also answer questions much like a search engine but in a more human way. It feels more conversational. The information you glean can be saved or archived for later use.

Could AI replace search engines?

It’s an interesting path to ponder. As this New York Times article outlines, it may not replace it just yet, but it could force Google to catch up to the technology and incorporate it into its search engine.

I’ve Got a Bad Feeling About This: The Dark Side of AI

While I’m all for working smarter, not harder, thoughts of AI’s darker side seep into my brain. If its power is abused or left unchecked. I worry about privacy and how deep fakes will affect our trust in creators and the online universe in general.

Jedi Mind Tricks

Will AI Affect Our Ability to Make Real & Authentic Connections?

“When something is artificial, it doesn’t stimulate your audience in the right way. They don’t want fake. They want real. Real connection. Real understanding. Real learning. Real help,” points out Danielle Hughes, Personality Branding Expert, and Speaker from More Than Words Marketing.

She continues to explain, “so, while all these new AI tools are making it easier for people to do things quickly, are they actually making it easier for people to achieve the desired stimulus of connection, engagement and action?”

One thing I think will be essential someday is to be verified on social media. Similar to what LinkedIn is doing with their verification, I wonder if we’ll see Meta and others follow suit where you need to have an ID or other verification of who you say you are. With states like Ohio trying to pass legislation to limit kids’ access to social media, I don’t see this as a bad thing.

In the meantime I think Danielle, brings up another good point, “instead of focusing our energy and effort on Artificial Intelligence, we should be focusing on Authentic Interaction. Just look at any recent employee engagement survey or article. Connection with colleagues and work friends is #1 for almost everyone in terms of impact on employee wellbeing and productivity. AI isn’t going to help us truly connect more with teammates or customers.”

There just isn’t a substitute for in real life connections.

I think we all found that out during the pandemic. I still like asking friends what books their book suggestions are or asking a neighbor who they hired to shingle their roof or an older mom friend for advice on dealing with a sassy teen. I don’t think a search engine or AI will ever be able to replicate the connection we feel when we get up close and become vulnerable with another human being.

In marketing terms, “maybe if we stopped looking for that quick fix” says Danielle, “we’d have more real genuine connection. Maybe if we slowed down and took the time to get to know what our audience wanted, we’d have customers for life. Customers who talk about us to their friends. Who love us and are diehards for what we have to say and what we offer.”

Danielle and I aren’t alone in our thinking. Many ad agencies are addressing the connection issue by adding AI restrictions to their contracts.

It’s a Trap!

Will AI Make Us Slackers?

When we become entitled and have a machine do all our work and think for us, will we become lazy slackers? The WALL-E movie pops into my head with the fitless people floating along on their jetson-like scooters, sipping on Buy-N-Large sodas, and staring at screens.

We have to avoid this trap.

It’s bad form to just copy and paste what you get from AI into your website, social media, posts and printed content. You’ve got to edit and refine it and inject your personality into it like Danielle explains above and Bevan below.

“Even though AI outlines and writes content, it can never replace your personal voice or style (at least not yet), says Bevan Calo. “I’ve found the output is usually robotic, overly cheerful, emoji-heavy, or generic. You still have to go in there and do the work to ensure your personal brand and voice are prevalent in the copy.”

High-quality content is crucial. Bad AI content can even hurt your search engine rankings now if not done right. The bottom line is that your content needs to be relevant, helpful, empathetic, and human.

The Dark Side of the Force is Strong with AI

Biases & Ethical Questions

How Are AI Tools Being Trained?

Whether AI turns into a Jedi or a Sith depends on its training.

Michael Husson points out the exploitative nature of AI training processes, which often rely on underpaid labor and the unauthorized use of copyrighted materials. This exploitation is a stark reminder of the dark side of AI. He says, “I do have a problem with how AI is trained and am concerned that it’s another way to extract more work in less time, not to make the life of a creative professional easier.”

Is AI a Clone? AI & Copyright

None of us are lawyers, but as artists, we do wonder about intellectual property rights when it comes to AI. We make our living from our creativity. To use someone else’s intellectual property, copy, or an image without their permission and unknowingly is bad karma at the very least and a legal mess at the worst. 

Jennifer Leonardson, from Oxyjen Design in Minnesota, expresses concern over intellectual property rights. “For me, it’s not worth the risk of using an image that has been altered, especially from a copyright standpoint. How do I know what the original source is for these images? And could I be liable for using them in design projects?” Currently,  images made with AI can’t be copyrighted. 

Revenge of The Synthetic Sith: Is AI biased?

Even the best-trained AI can be corrupted and go down a twisted path of bias and discrimination. “Another very real concern is the prejudices and racist/sexist ideas that AI also pulls in along with all other information it can find. It doesn’t have ethics or “thoughts,” so it is up to us to mitigate this information. HOW is the poignant question,” asks Lindy Bostrom. 

“Overall, my thoughts about AI are that it is a reflection of our world culture and history, and the things that we are concerned about are also concerns about humanity itself. It is a sophisticated robot that is iterating based on our collective input, which makes it an interesting experiment,” Lindy goes on to explain, “Possibly, it could cause humanity to check itself (which is not happening very well these days) because what we do is what will be reflected.”

Attack of the Coded Clones: What About Privacy?

Although an unreal-dancing Keanu Reeves Deepfake gives me a good laugh, it does give me pause. I saw a disturbing article pop up on my computer the other day. The headline read, “Deepfake of principal’s voice is the latest case of AI being used for harm.” Oh man, what is this world coming to I thought? 

Michael Bren, President of Crown Point Solutions in Fort Collins, Colorado, specializes in cybersecurity and compliance and provides managed IT services. Michael asks if “people are putting too much faith in the motives of big technology companies and the AI tools that they are developing. I believe it’s a good thing for us to have some healthy skepticism regarding the purpose of AI tools and what ulterior motives tech companies have in how we use these tools.”

AI is moving fast, and it’s hard for legislation and the people to keep up with the pace. “The current wave of AI development and adoption threatens some of the basic privacy principles that we all take for granted, and tech companies are doing this with virtually no oversight,” Bren says.

Our Only Hope: Question Everything.

As AI evolves, we need to ask, “Who is holding them accountable for how they are gathering and using our data?” Bren warns, “We would all do well to be cautious of the data that we post and what we willingly give to these tools. Be sure to read the fine print and be aware of what rights you’re giving up by accepting the terms and conditions of using any AI tool.”

He also questions the IT security of AI tools. Microsoft AI Copilot “automatically consumes the data on your computer and likely stores it in the cloud, supposedly for the purpose of helping you be more productive and efficient. The tech companies claim it’s secure, but how does one know? The risks of data leaks and improper access are very high.” 

Bren suggests asking ourselves questions like—

• • What are the tech companies doing to protect the data that they’ve gathered? 
  • Are they selling your data without your knowledge?  
  • Are they violating any consumer privacy laws?
  • What if I want them to remove your data from their databases? 
  • Can you remove your data even once it’s been consumed? 
  • Is the use of AI tools at your workplace violating your company’s information security policy without you even knowing it?

To combat bias’s insidious influence, we must increase diversity in AI development teams, encourage transparency, establish AI policies and ethics, and work together to find balance.  

Finding the Balance in AI

“Difficult to see; always in motion the future” wise words from Master Yoda. It’s hard to say where AI will take us, but what’s clear: the future is what we make it. 

Bevan Calo believes, “AI should be viewed as a supplement to human creativity, not a replacement.” 

I agree. AI isn’t good or bad but rather a tool to be wielded. In the end, it’s how you use it that matters. We must create balance and forge a path ahead that enhances our powers of creativity.

What do you think? What side will you choose?

Are you curious how I used Perplexity AI for this blog post? Click here for inspiration for the headings and here for the sentiment analysis.

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