This is not a value-judgement, it is a statement, an observation of the way things are; albeit based on my personal experience and anecdotal evidence.
In the world right now there are lots of people on both sides of the A.I. emotion spectrum; some people are excited about the possibilities, and some people absolutely despise what A.I. represents from a philosophical standpoint.
What this means is that if you create content which is detectibly A.I. generated, some people will see it as a matter of course, while others will have a moderate-to-severely lowered opinion of your business1. Since neither of these represents an increase in esteem2, this leaves your brand impression at a net negative.
I think this consideration will be most relevant to those whose target market consists largely of creatives, and those trying to market themselves with some form of thought-leadership-style content.
In the first place, creatives tend to be among the most affronted by A.I. on an existential level, which means leaning into it will not gain you any good-will with that segment, rather the reverse.
In the second place, if a large part of your offering is built on your personal insights, then any indication that some part of those insights are A.I. generated will cast a pall of doubt over your entire output and, more importantly, your ability to deliver what you claim to offer (i.e. your thinking). It’s like playing Scrabble online with someone that you caught using Scrabble Word Finder once—for the rest of the game you’re never quite sure how authentic their moves are.
But in any case, the worst thing you can do for your credibility is to try to pass off A.I. generated content as human-generated. So if you’re going to use A.I., be honest3 (i.e. authentic), but also make sure you have a clear idea of how it will affect your customers’ perception of your business.
- I have been surprised at the number of people who are unaware of the viscerally negative reaction that many people have to the use of A.I. (which is part of the reason for this post). I’d say much more people are excited to create content with A.I. than anyone is to consume A.I. created content, but that may be a topic for a different post. ↩︎
- The only way for a use of generative A.I. to create an improved impression is if either A.I. is an integral part of your offering to begin with and/or you can manage to create something truly unique and valuable with it—which, if you’re simply using it for the sake of your own speed, cost, and convenience, is unlikely. ↩︎
- The disclosure of A.I. is becoming more common and people are developing interesting methods of doing so, for instance this A.I. contribution scale by Blair Enns. By that scale, this post—and every post in this newsletter—is AI-0. ↩︎
