The Biz Cache

Welcome to the first post in my three post series: AI for Professionals. During this series, you will learn how to use AI, specifically Chat GPT, to be more productive. In future posts we will delve into how you can make AI sound like you, how to write effective prompts, and ideas to put this knowledge into action.

Tools like Chat GPT or other AI technologies can enhance decision-making speed and efficiency, thus boosting productivity. Not only is it powerful but it’s available to anyone with a smart phone or internet connection- making it an accessible tool for most people. We seem to hear about it all the time, but how can it work for you, who should use it, and when should you use caution?

Who should consider using Chat GPT?

• Anyone who writes: You write emails or communicate electronically in any way.
• Content creators: Think broadly here. Do you ever create something from scratch for others to use, engage with, or read?
• Customer facing professionals: You deal with a customer regularly or on occasion.
• Problem solvers: Do you regularly provide solutions to others inside or outside of your organization?
• Developers: You work with automation, coding, or anything that requires a natural language interface.
• Administrative work: Are there repetitive tasks that could be completed faster?
• Project/Product Managers: You regularly create artifacts, communicate, assess situations, and make decisions.
• Creative Work: Generation of new ideas, concepts, interpretations, or art.
• Everyone else: If you haven’t identified yourself yet- consider yourself on the list.

Practical Uses

What are some common ways you can use Chat GPT professionally to improve your work.

• Emails: Generate text for emails. Are you having a hard time putting your thoughts in order? By writing a good prompt (see the third post in this series) AI can build the perfect email.
• Editing Text: Do you want to sound more professional or write in a specific style? Ask Chat GPT to re-write your text for you.
• Generate Summaries: Copy and paste large texts to summarize in a format of your choosing. Ask for bullet points, specify how concise or descriptive you need it to be.
• Translation: Chat GPT can work as basic natural language translator.
• Risk Assessments: Identify risks associated with a project, including remedies and precautions.
• Writing Plans or Procedures: Chat GPT is great at generating procedures or creating work plans. Be specific with your prompts and be sure to validate the procedures.
• To do lists: It can prioritize and help to discover any missing steps in a process.
• Customer Support: Chat GPT can be used for more complex uses such as integration as a chat bot. However, you can also use it on a case by case basis to provide quick answers in a conversational format to common questions.
• Handling Challenging Communication Situations: Use Chat GPT to roleplay a conversation you’re preparing for. You may also use it to prepare written communication which is delivering bad news- where you want to be sure to get your message across in the correct way. Keep prompting for adjustments as needed.
• Analysis: It can analyze large data sets and respond to prompts regarding the data. It can also generate reports, extract insights, provide summaries and interpretations.
• Create Training/Education Materials: Ask it to put together a learning plan around a particular topic. You might also ask it to source information regarding a topic.
• Project Management: Chat GPT can generate project planning artifacts, help with task delegation, user stories, assess risks, and estimate schedules.
• Make it your personal assistant: Save time. Proofreading, creating lists, organizing information, generating meeting content- these are all tasks that Chat GPT can do in a fraction of the time you could.
• Build Agendas: Ask it to build an agenda or schedule. You could also have it write up a meeting agenda for a particular topic.
• Condensing Writing: Let’s be honest- you have at least 5 tasks on your plate at all time and ain’t nobody got time for long emails. Use it to edit can make your writing concise.

A word of caution…

While it’s a powerful and capable tool, Chat GPT has it’s downside. You need to be aware of the limitations of AI models when using them for professional use.

• Bias: Large Language Models (LLM’s) are trained on specific content. It’s important to understand that this content may not be a good representation of the reality we live in. Furthermore, AI is trained by individuals who may harbor their own inherent biases- which they introduce to the AI through training. You need to consider biases when thinking of how you plan to use AI, especially if you are using it to make decisions with real world effects. I encourage you to learn more about this concept. To get you started, here is an article by Craig Piers from Scientific American on Racial Bias in Chat GPT.
• Regulatory Considerations: Chat GPT could cause compliance issues in certain industries. For example, chat history can be used in future LLM training unless disabled, which potentially exposes confidential or private data. There are risks that the AI model was trained on data with copyrights. Businesses need to ensure that the use of LLM’s in their workplace complies with privacy laws.
• Originality: AI like Chat GPT are trained on other’s works and existing content on the web. AI has the capability to produce content which is original but be weary of the fact that the authors of the material it’s been trained on are not being recognized for their work in many cases, or sources may be inaccurate if given.
• Complex Topics / Hallucinations: Chat GPT can handle complex topics however it may lack some highly specific or up to date information. Hallucinations may occur when AI creates information that isn’t correct, which it has made up. In fact, a study at Purdue University found that 52% of the AI’s answers regarding programming questions were incorrect. Find the paper here.
• Outdated Information: Depending on the Chat GPT version you use, you may be accessing out of date information. Check information regarding the Chat GPT model you are using to learn more.
• Inaccurate Responses: The responses you will get are based on patterns of data/text that have been used to ‘teach’ the program. The information could be generated based on context vs correct data.
• AI Content can be Detected: A pet peeve of mine is content written by AI, passed off as human generated content. If you’re suspicious of a text, this AI content detector such as this one by CopyLeaks, can help you determine it’s origin. There are full blogs and content farms out there written by LLM’s. When it’s used honestly- there is a place for it. When it’s passed off as human work it’s inauthentic and misleading.
• Ethical Considerations: Check out my fourth post in this series for more info (coming soon). In short, ask yourself- Is it ethically moral to use generated content as if it’s your own? Does it depend on the situation or the context? We will dive deeper into this on the fourth post in this series. For now I will direct you to this

What are some ways that you use Chat GPT or AI? Has it changed any activities in your profession over the last few years? Let me know in the comments and join me for the next post in the series later this month: “How to make AI sound like you.”