Hello and welcome to the Working Image Podcast. I'm your host, Jared Michael Gordon. This is episode 11, AI and Your Business. Let's get started. You may have heard the term ai. I'm sure you have Artificial intelligence or maybe MidJourney ChatGPT or Stable Diffusion, which are all AI generators of art and or written content. Over the last few months, there has been a huge increase in the use of these products and, it's one of those technologies where it's good and bad at the same time. First, let's get to science fiction o ut o f the way. AI isn't going to become self-aware and take over the world with a bunch of Terminator robots. That's not how AI works. It's fun to think about, however, that's not how it works. However, AI can and has made our lives better and easier. For example, when your phone learns your schedule and regular routes you take to work and then suggests a better route, and when you should leave to avoid delays, your phone hasn't become self-aware. It just learns your habits via GPS and your calendar, and it is trying to make your life easier. But as this or any technology gets increasingly better with time, where, if any, does the line get drawn? Now, this isn't a debate over whether or not we should have AI because it's here to stay whether we like it or not, it's going to change the world. There's no doubt about that. However, the current AI craze is about image creation and written content creation. These various generators work through a series of verbal prompts you provide. For example, you need an image for your latest blog post that you wrote for your company, or perhaps a new piece of marketing material or even your website. So you log into Midjourney and you say, I need an image of a tree on a moon with the stars shining on it. Or perhaps something more realistic, such as I need an image of a dog catching a ball in mid-air with its family in the background cheering. After a few seconds or minutes, you'll have your results. Your results, which is the set of images that are within your prompts. 90% of them are usually what you need. There will be some misses, but you'll find what you need. Now, let's talk about the written word for a moment. The big player on the block for ai written word is ChatGPT. You can prompt a software to write anything you need, seriously, anything. Do you need a good chicken recipe? You'll have it. Do you need a term paper written for you? Ask and you shall receive. Do you need code written for your latest software development project? How about a blog post mission statement, product review speech, various reports, reviews, a legal defense podcast, outline any contract you need, literally anything. You name it and you'll have it. The results are great 80% of the time and are nonsensical to remaining 20% of the time, but I'm sure that will change over time as the technology gets better and better. How does this affect your business? It solves several content problems you may have, whether you are gathering content for a website or need a blog post or a marketing element for your business. AI generators are your friend. So what's the problem? The problem is that AI generators are scraping content from the web to create your prompted content. You still don't see a problem here it is that content they scrape from the internet is copywritten. Maybe not every piece of source material they use is copywritten, but in most cases, there is copywritten content in the results, and that my friends is illegal. You are not allowed by law to use someone else's copywritten intellectual property for your own gain. You and your company can be held liable for copyright infringement for using the content AI generators create. Ever since these AI generators gained popularity, I've been saying that lawsuits are coming. Creators will not sit down and let their work be used without compensation, nor should they, and the lawsuits are now here. 2023 will be the year of AI lawsuits. I've linked a few articles regarding AI lawsuits in the show notes. The outcome of these lawsuits will obviously set the precedent for how AI can move forward. There is another concern regarding ai, and that is its environmental impact. Just like cryptocurrency, AI takes an extremely large amount of computing power. It's an incredible amount of computing power. All that processing takes a big toll on the environment, and I'm sure those lawsuits will be coming soon as well. And then there is Google AI generated content violates Google's policies. Google will tak e action against your website if they find AI generated content on your website, no matter if it's an image or written content. How will they take action? Well, that's unknown, but there's only so many things they can do. They can either deran your site or remove your site altogether from search results. I don't know about you, but I don't want that happening to my business. If the court sides with AI generators, the content creation industry will change and diminish. Graphic and web designers, photographers, digital artists in general and writers of all kinds will be out of work, but it won't stop there. AI generators are now working with video, so that takes out actors, producers, and directors. All of them, but where will it go from there? Will it impact your industry? It more than likely will? Who knows? Now, if the court sides with the artists, my suggestion is that AI generators license the source material they use to generate content from creators. That way they get paid for the work and the technology still works and moves forward and everyone wins. But I'm sure the AI generator companies do not want to pay for the source material. But for now, until we know how this will all shake out in the courts, I suggest avoiding ai, saving your company from a lawsuit you didn't know was coming. Well, that's it for episode 11 of The Working Image Podcast, AI and Your Business. All the necessary links and information are in the show notes. If you have any questions, email theworkingimage@gmail.com. We know your time is valuable. Thank you for using some of that time to listen. Take care.