Artificial intelligence and automation are wonderful inventions. Programming computers to complete repeatable tasks is an efficient way to free up humans to sit in the sunshine and drink lemonade.
Decades ago, smart people who thought around corners and into the distance predicted that a program written to learn and improve itself would naturally begin to think for itself. When movies like Terminator described what could happen when AI programs become sentient, more of the population learned what early predictors feared.
In the same way that climate change activists spread the word about global warming by flying and driving to climate change conferences, the news about computer programs getting too big for their britches is being spread by robots.
When the need for more content outweighs the need for better content, production speed will be increased. And as driving too fast causes crashes, runaway AI look’s like it might miss the next turn.
New discoveries, companies, products, and websites all need to be promoted and advertised. And since Skynet hasn’t taken over yet, content creators still see AI as the best way to speed up production. I typed “Write blog with AI” into the search box and brought up an endless list of entrepreneurs who will teach me to write ten times as many posts in half the time, to write blog posts in ten or even five minutes, even to write blog posts without having to write blog posts.
Now that I don’t have to spend all that time writing, I can spend more time and energy making sure the posts I didn’t write have enough keywords to make them easy to find by search engines. Fortunately, there are also programs I can use to take care of search engine optimization, and email programs so that I can send the same email pitch to everyone in the universe. I’ll be on the patio before the ice in the lemonade starts to melt.
From the customer’s perspective, let’s say I want to buy a new computer mouse or tennis racquet. I might know generally what I want, but I want to make sure I’m getting the newest, best, and least expensive version of the mouse or racquet.
No problem. I’ll just type “best tennis racquet” or “computer mouse deals” into the search box, which should be called “search jack-in-the-box.” Pages of possibilities jump out of the box faster than the spring shot clown. If I was the indecisive type I could be here all day, but I’m just going to click on the most successfully optimized snippet.
With just a few clicks I can find the best choice at the best price, and probably have it delivered to my house today. The business makes a sale, the shipping company makes a delivery, and I get my new tool or toy. And this convenience is exactly why saving the world is so difficult.
Maybe that’s a bit of a leap. Stay with me for a minute and I’ll try to bridge the gap. “Saving the world” is a completely different misunderstood subject. The world asking us to save it would be like us asking cancer to heal our illnesses.
Getting back on track, we established that AI can create the content necessary to sell goods and services. And we have shown that AI can also help us find relevant content to help us make purchases. So, to increase production and expedite consumption, we have robots writing content that robots read so that robots can complete transactions.
So far so good. But what happens when the focus of a business changes from satisfying customers to simply reaching as many customers as possible? Or thinking sales is just a numbers game, so if we make enough pitches, we’ll make enough sales?
We start to get hundreds of impersonal emails blasted from shotgun sales programs. And we try to read product descriptions generated by AI programs constructed so carelessly that they’re almost indecipherable. Automated chat mechanisms are constantly available, but rarely able to answer the questions we need answered.
It’s time to bring what customers want back into focus. I know it’s unrealistic to think someone who runs a company will sacrifice the company’s profits or spend more money to please customers when it’s not necessary. But we can at least create each piece of content with the care and respect both the content and the customer deserve.
Maybe we can’t change things like global warming, how politicians make deals, or how business is run. But we can treat our readers like they deserve our best efforts when we’re writing.