Will Holland is a Principal Software Engineer at ThreeWill. Will has proven to be adept at understanding a client’s needs and matching them with the appropriate solution. Recently he’s developed a passion for working with .NET, MVC, and cloud-based solutions such as Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365.
We love technology here at ThreeWill. We love it so much that it was one of the original three pillars behind the “Three” in ThreeWill – the other two pillars being process and, of course, people. These were the original passions, the things we wanted to be the best at when ThreeWill was starting. Thankfully, not too much has changed in these decades.
So, naturally, artificial intelligence is something that is discussed quite often around the office. ChatGPT, of course, has been a big topic for the past few months. Lately, we’ve been really focused on how we can use it and similar tools in our own work-lives, what we need to be careful of, and the morality of using ChatGPT-type technologies for the purposes of content creation.
I’ve been using ChatGPT for a lot of random things, for things both personally and professionally. Recipes, poems, guitar, and – yes – blogs too…ChatGPT has been helping me for months. So, when someone started a Teams conversation about the subject, I shared with them what I’m sharing with you all.
My top three things to remember when using ChatGPT at work.
#1 – Don’t trust anything it says as the truth.
Check its math, facts, sources, etc. You can ask it for its sources but I’m fairly confident it just makes them up. I don’t know if that means the answer to my “What are your sources?” question is made up, or if it just made up its original answer.
If you read it, and it makes sense based on what you know, it’s probably fine. If the topic or question you’re chatting with ChatGPT about has a definitively correct answer, or if the stakes are particularly high, you’re going to want to fact check it, lest you end up arguing a legal case based on fictional rulings.
#2 – It’s good at simple stuff and outlines…not so good at nuance.
I’ve used it to author simple scripts – in fact it wrote one I used quite successfully on a recent project – for copying list items from a CSV.
It also has some understanding of more human-centric concepts like “tone” or “voice”. Asking it to “use a folksier tone” in a poem or song will get you results, but you may sound like you’re from the foothills of Kentucky. ChatGPT can be a bit over the top with that stuff, which makes it a bit difficult to end up with something that sounds like you wrote it; unless you are from the foothills of Kentucky.
As far as blogs go, using it as a way to get a quick outline, or even just to generate some ideas/thoughts has been really helpful in churning out blogs. I still have to go back and reword a fair amount of text, but that’s more of my own personal preference and a desire to be able to recognize my own voice. I doubt anyone, other than myself, would really be able to tell my writing apart from anyone else.
#3 – It’s a tool. Use it without feeling guilty.
I know a lot of people question the morality of using AI-generated content. ChatGPT is a tool that can be used to gain an advantage, so it will be used to gain an advantage. If not by you, then by your competitors.
No reason to be the person still holding onto your Encyclopedia Britannica collection or refusing to use Wikipedia as a source of information.
A lot of the struggles I hear people dealing with regarding the use of ChatGPT or other AI-powered content generation share a common sentiment: “It feels like cheating.”
I’m not sure if it’s a global experience but, growing up here in America, I always heard sayings like “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” or “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Sayings like this, I feel, have taught Americans to be extremely cynical about anything that dramatically improves our own lives; particularly when there are no obvious strings attached.
It’s just a tool. An amazingly awesome tool that could be used to help you get that blog started, come up with an idea for that next verse, or just go down a rabbit hole in your imagination that you can just go down and explore. Don’t feel bad about it. Use it well, free up your time, and just worry about focusing on the parts of your day that matter most to you.
The genie is out of the bottle.
As this technology continues to develop and advance, employees are going to become more reliant on it to get more work done in less time. Whether you’re an employee or an employer, this technology is here and should be embraced.
Microsoft is going all-in on AI and the folks here at ThreeWill are excited to be at the forefront of helping our clients leverage this technology to empower their employees and help them thrive. If you’d like to be a part of the journey, feel free to contact us today.
Be warned, though. Once you get on board, you won’t be able to go back to the way things were.
CONTACT THREEWILL TODAY TO EMPOWER YOUR EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE TODAY!