Your Role Is Disappearing One Prompt at a Time
Do you use AI?
Well, that’s a stupid question at this point.
Who doesn’t?
And even - how can you not? If you have a corporate job, one way or another your company is “forcing” you to use AI.
I continuously notice with our clients and partners that so much written communication (e-mails, docs, presentations) get written by AI. Yes, I know - it’s “old news”. But the scale of it is increasing.
You get massive docs dumped on you by a person who has “summarized the project approach” or “strategized the value chain” or “brainstormed the solution” - and it’s this unrelentless watershed of words that AI generates to convey a smart point.
Here is where you think I might start saying “AI is wrong! I don’t like that content! Where is human creativity!” and call for throwing a couple of molotovs into the data centers…
No. I actually want to say that 80% (if not more) of that AI content generated within and for corporate work is not bad. It’s correct, it covers all important points, it captures needed details and extrapolates realistic outcomes. It is useful.
And if I were to feed someone’s AI answer to “my AI”, to read and answer back - both AI’s would have a blast of a time chatting to each other and solving problems.
But observing this growing AI content in corporate communications - it made me question - what’s the actual role and value of a person who has sent me these nicely compiled AI insights.
What’s his/hers role in this communication? Human integration between one output and another input? Prompts coordinator? AI to e-mail automator?
Some defense might read like: he/she is curating AI, guiding, filtering and picking the best output.
But that’s… Weak. Does that cost 100-200-300k per year? Nope. And to be honest, that curation/filtering is just one extra prompt. Instead of asking “you” I can ask the same AI.
What role and what value a human employee plays in the midst of increasing AI communications coming in and out?
Am I building the case for “firing everyone”? No. Not at all. I’m not FOR this model.
But if today, you have generated an e-mail reply with AI, read it and thought “Nice! Reads smart, good, I’m sending it!” - with each sent e-mail like that you are working yourself out of this job. Exponentially faster than you think.
If AI can now generate stuff that you want others to trust as yours - then others are developing the trust in AI - not you. Others didn’t read through YOUR misunderstanding of the issue, YOUR mistake, YOUR out of the box idea, YOUR clumsy spelling, etc. Others didn’t develop trust through the process of working and growing with you. They got someone else’s content sent to them by you. And they like it and they trust it. And as this AI content is what the receiver expected in quality and detail - why did it take you so long to send it? You didn’t have to write it. Are you now becoming a “meat bag” bottleneck? An obstacle between the correct information and the interested receiver of that information? What can (and maybe even should) happen next? The “meat bag” behind the AI needs to be removed or automated for efficiency.
I like people. I like working with them. I like them to be wrong and I like them to prove me wrong. I like conflict, misunderstandings and full agreements. I like emotional late night e-mails that shouldn’t have being sent and arrow-sharp one liners that seal deals. I like being lost in 100s of opinions or guided by an expert one. I like the leaders who decide to go in the wrong direction and the followers who now have to fix that. And I like to witness the marvel of an experienced leader in action who bestows deepest wisdom on a group of people, leading them to prosperity and success.
I like human diversity that is FAR from being perfect and doesn’t need to be.
And because we think that we are “less” - we hide behind something that we think is “more” - AI content.
This is not really a call for action. I think nothing will really change. A lot of people will still feel the pressure of speed and need to generate content with AI rather than spend days writing it or because they are not sure that they can produce adequate quality. And they will generate CORRECT content with AI.
I’m just worried that human communication is becoming even more distant. Fading away. And I don’t know if there is anything we can actually do about it.
We will live through a new paradigm of AI running businesses. Maybe…