How Artificial Intelligence (AI) helped my Business
Artificial Intelligence has been quite the buzzword as of late, and certainly because of companies incorporating AI and machine learning into their products, amongst other things. Thoughts have certainly surfaced on how artificial intelligence could help my business, but never did I truly seek out an answer.
I was perusing the internet as I do daily going over various articles on the latest technologies to see if there was anything noteworthy to read through. An article posted on TheVerge featuring OpenAI’s ChatGPT AI model immediately caught my eye. After looking into this further, I decided to test this model out.
If you’re unaware, ChatGPT is a text-chat AI that receives questions and provides answers according to the training (machine learning) that it has received. There are various of them out there but this one was interesting in the sense that it actually served to help me with my business with a particularly niched question regarding web development and CSS.
Attempting to Google a solution led to various Stackflow articles that were anything but the solution. Surprisingly, ChatGPT gave me a response that got my brain juices running to the effect that I came to a solution within a few minutes.
Tony Stark & Jarvis
As I sat down with the solution in sight, I couldn’t help but marvel at the power of this tool. I’m no stranger to AI and Machine Learning, having experienced it a bit using Salesforce during a hackathon at my previous place of employment Siemens. I was, however, thrilled at the thought of having a tool akin to Tony Stark’s Jarvis.
For those unaware, Tony Stark is Iron Man from Marvel Comics, and Jarvis (whose name is actually J.A.R.V.I.S. standing for Just A Rather Very Intelligent System) is his Artificial Intelligent System. Jarvis was tasked with various business tasks by Tony to the point where Jarvis was essentially running Stark Industries (but not as much as Pepper). A sample use-case for Jarvis involved Tony Stark asking questions and providing directives to where Jarvis would provide full-blown renders of what Tony was asking, providing solutions to problems with the capability of learning from its tasks.
I began to feel like Tony Stark with this seemingly small solution to my question. If Jarvis was able to help effectively run Stark Industries, how much more could AI assist my business? What if before I even use Google I just shoot this AI a question about what I’m facing? What else are its capabilities?
System Documents
One of the current goals of our company Arising Co is to create system documents that will serve to assist team members and clients with useful information for operating a certain task. We are intentional about growing the company and thus my wife and I have to have our knowledge passed down. The websites we build for clients are predominantly on WordPress, and we value educating our clients on how to use their website upon completion of their website.
One of the main tasks a client wants to perform is posting a blog on their website. I had built a system out for this already, but I wanted to see what ChatGPT could dish out. I asked it a simple question: “How do I post a blog on my WordPress website?” The answer it provided was so well written that I had to replace much of my wording in my own system. Suddenly I realized that this AI could assist me in creating proper systems documents that I would then revise and touch up to ensure all the information I want it to have is featured.
Creating a system can take about 15-20 minutes, sometimes more depending on the nature of the task. With this AI, however, by starting off with what it spews, those 15-20 minutes end up becoming a total of 5 minutes. Saving 10-15 minutes enables us to get more completed and accomplish our goals sooner. AI is truly an asset that can be used for good!
Problems in My Code
Another great use case for this AI tool has certainly been assisting me with issues I face in my coding for web development. Often time I can find the answer through docs, and if not, then Google is my go-to. When Google doesn’t give me the answer, the AI tool has been more than enough to steer me in the right direction (and has done so).
Because of this, I find myself going to the AI first, then the docs and Google second because I can trust the AI to provide me with a more direct answer with all the material it’s received as part of its machine learning. I can imagine it being a matter of time before Google releases their own AI tool so that it becomes the next frontier for searches—not having to rely on search engine results to lead a person to various websites attempting to gain the solution when it can do so with AI.
Implications of AI and the Future
Now I understand that AI is not all good. There are models that exist out there that are being trained with copyrighted material. This is a purely unethical approach, and I don’t support it. For models that are fed open-source material, however, I will support and make use of it.
There is even AI out there ready to create blog articles for you in a fraction of the time, though even this I feel is unethical and can be abused. I don’t mind it assisting you in your creation process, but to create a 700-1000 word article based around a given subject for you to then revise to post and create a blogging business from seems quite unethical. Will people use it for this purpose though? Absolutely.
It’s crazy to see AI becoming more mainstream (especially in the Digital Marketing space), and in a few years’ time, it will most certainly be used for good and evil. Will jobs be replaced? Certainly, given that various industries have already relinquished their need for more personnel due to the advancement in robotics. AI is the next frontier, and for now, I certainly will use it to aid me in my work, just as Tony Stark did Jarvis.
If you’d like to beta test this AI chat tool, check it out at https://chat.openai.com/chat