As technology continues to advance, organizations are turning to AI and natural language processing tools like ChatGPT to automate repetitive tasks and free up employees’ time. By leveraging these tools, employees are able to focus on higher-level, more meaningful work that requires critical thinking, creativity, and human interaction. There are many reasons to augment work with AI.
One of the key benefits of using AI in the workplace is that it allows employees to spend more time on activities that are essential for personal and professional growth. For example, employees can use their newfound free time to learn new skills, develop deeper relationships with colleagues and clients, and engage in self-reflection and personal development.
Additionally, AI tools like ChatGPT can help employees work more efficiently and effectively by providing them with instant access to information, automating tedious tasks, and enabling them to communicate more effectively with others. This can lead to increased job satisfaction, improved employee morale, and ultimately, a more engaged and productive workforce.
Overall, the use of AI and natural language processing tools like ChatGPT can enhance the employee experience by giving humans more time to think, learn, and build relationships. As these technologies continue to evolve, they will play an increasingly important role in helping organizations create more productive, engaged, and satisfied employees.
The previous four paragraphs were written by ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence platform that is delighting and terrifying everyone’s worklife.
Here it is as a haiku
AI tools enhance
Employee’s time for growth,
Relationships thrive.
Here it is as a corporate memo
…that, theoretically, I could send to my boss and her executive colleagues to underscore the importance of testing ways to augment work with AI:
The use of AI and natural language processing tools such as ChatGPT can greatly enhance the employee experience within our organization. By automating repetitive tasks, these tools free up employees’ time to focus on higher-level, more meaningful work that requires critical thinking, creativity, and human interaction. This shift in focus towards more valuable activities leads to increased productivity, job satisfaction, and employee engagement. Additionally, the use of AI tools can help employees work more efficiently and effectively by providing them with instant access to information and enabling better communication with colleagues and clients. As a result, the implementation of AI technologies can lead to a more engaged and productive workforce, and ultimately, an improved overall employee wellbeing.
All this writing took less than one minute to produce (I just had to give it a variety of prompts).
Jon Favreau, former speechwriter for President Barak Obama and current Pod Bro, and his podcast guest, Evan Puschak, summarized on a recent episode that AI programs like ChatGPT are creating “B minus” work and, probably, not fooling many executive teams or corporate boards; however, as Puschak notes, ChatGPT is profoundly disrupting education, especially if educators don’t adapt:
…and that’s where it starts to get more interesting or dangerous depending on how you look at it because yeah it’s not going to be able to reproduce a John Favreau Obama speech with any kind of persuasive power that that you might be able to give it but you know what’s so interesting about this is that it came out I think November 30th and I just happened to be visiting my parents’ house for Thanksgiving the week before and my parents are trying to sell their house and part of that process is that they’re making me go through all of my old stuff of which they have kept all of it and so I was going through these boxes of essays that I had written in elementary school and Junior High in high school and they are so bad like they are just so the writing is torturous you know and what you get most from it really is how much I really did not want to be writing those essays which I think is important to this whole discussion but the chat GPT versions of those prompts are definitely better than what I was writing…
Futurist Heather McGowan argues that human beings who learn how to ask great questions because, once an answer exists, ChatGPT and AI tools like it will be able to find and present solutions faster (and, sooner than we think, better) than people can. Logically, McGowan argues that we need to move from having all the answers to having all the questions:
To make this leap, we need to shift our thinking from creating a deployable workforce of experts to developing a citizenry of life-long learners. We need to move from “education”, which connotes the end state of being “educated”, to learning, a continuous process of discovery, enlightenment, and new skills development. We need to get very comfortable being “newbies” embracing the opportunities of emerging ideas.
Students are disrupting classrooms around the world with AI-backed essays and workplaces are tinkering with policy writing and strategy creation using these tools. Here are three ways that you can augment work with AI.
Expand drafts and brainstorms
While I don’t believe in writers block (it’s avoidance of bad writing, not a block), it can be hard to get started on a project. When I introduced ChatGPT to some teammates, one of our curriculum designers noted that the bot’s outline was not to her standards, but it did provide a suitable draft to build from.
For example, I am working on a workshop about how to ask powerful questions and, as I write this article, ChatGPT is writ- just finished the draft lesson plan.
Execute repetitive tasks
A friend of mine, who is a teacher, showed ChatGPT to her principal to, you know, give them a heads up that this thing is already on Tik Tok and fooling teachers. The principal responded by saying that they would use the AI tool for writing reference letters (because they write so many every year).
Exactly.
Once there is a codified formula or guidelines for output, such as policies or client emails, ChatGPT can release workers from repetition and unlock creative potential.
Enable curious and creative work
My friend Lisa Taylor gets it. ChatGPT and other AI tools are “making our work better and more human than ever”. Here is a story of how Lisa and her team used ChatGPT for a Cannexus23 conference presentation:
The program didn’t design their workshop and it probably won’t be the engine that reproduces such a creative and personalized piece of work.
As communities everywhere grapple with the impact of AI tools disrupting and augmenting work of all kinds, human experts and agile learners will showcase how pivoting and reskilling will shape the future of work.