Vol III: #69 Remote Work, AI, and the Future
The term ChapGPT burrowed it’s way into the popular zeitgeist this year. The pro-tech crowd lauds the chat bot while the usual suspects huddle in the corner, forever afraid of the future. I first used a chatbot three years ago to help write ads for a few clients. Chat GPT isn’t new or immoral. It’s a tool. And like any object, the morality lay of the object in the hands and intent of the user. My business uses ChatGPT to generate copy for websites, emails, and ads. We still employ copy-writers. And by using a chatbot, they produce four times the volume of work. Then we pass along the savings to our customers- who are all small businesses.
I’m not sure why humans freak out at every technological advance, last year it was NFTs, another vastly misunderstood tool. If time travel were real, I’d want to see how people respond to the wheel or toilet or the spoon. My guess is when Billy Bob the caveman decided to use a rock to shovel his food into his mouth, his buddies called him weak or posh. Look at Billy, poor bastard thinks he’s too good to use his hands.
I assume most people react to new technology with caveman skepticism because they don’t know what’s in it for them. In my quest to be wise, I’ve learned to ask “what’s possible?” rather than develop a strong opinion to one side or the other. Fifteen years ago, I never thought Facebook or Twitter would be ground zero for every idiot with internet access or that I’d work remote. But in 2023, I work from my couch and manage a team of people spread out across the planet.
So, what’s in it for you? Allow me to offer one scenario, of many, but it’s mine:
Because my new job doesn’t have an office, we keep overheard low. By leveraging a virtual personal assistant in the Philippines, copy writers in Romania, and ChatGPT, we keep expenses down. By keeping expenses down we keep our prices down, and our clients- plumbers, electricians, landscapers, etc- keep their marketing costs low. You see?
Admittedly, technology can be used for evil. As soon as the printing press was invented- to mass print Bibles- pornographic material was replicated and distributed. Interstates allow drug dealers to ship meth and heroine all over the country. And crypto is being used by human-traffickers. (Which is really dumb because all crypto transactions are forever listed on public ledger.) With few exceptions, all tech has wheat and tares. And we can’t be scared of the future. It’s coming one day at a time, might as well embrace it.
