Human overlay still required

Because success lies in how something is received, not given.

Below I share a link to a conversation my Optionality co-founder Jory Des Jardins and I had on LinkedIn Live last week. In that conversation Jory expressed concern about people coming into the workforce, using AI to do everything and missing out on learning from their own failed drafts and rough sketches.

In other words, if you buy that it takes 10K hours to become expert (which I think has been debunked a bit, but still…) will people’s ability to achieve expertise be stunted by the time-saving efficiencies of AI tools?

I had a bit of an epiphany in real time during the discussion. And that was that AI cannot save us from the realization that no matter how intelligent you are, there is a kind of smarts that comes from experience. And the kind of results that come from understanding people and what kind of baggage the recipient of your efforts is carrying. In other words, the human overlay.

This is actually nothing new. I’m sure we’ve all known, heard about, or even been that straight-A high school student who shows up at college and soon realizes the campus is FULL of great high school students. This is so common it’s a trope in YA entertainment. You can take it a trope further…the same humbling realization comes to young adults emerging with newly minted college degrees who discover that the old timer in the office (often their 30-something boss) is unimpressed at their early attempts to put their degree to work in a real-world situation.

I think a lot of us will have the same experience if we are over-reliant on AI tools without applying a human overlay. Because an experienced editor, manager, or customer will probably smell your untouched AI-generated copy a mile away. They may not even be able to tell you exactly why it smells like AI, but they’ll know.

Sort of like when I see an image and think, huh, I bet that’s AI. And then, I zoom in on the hands in the image and see the bizarre number of finger-like appendages that are definitely not real fingers, and I confirm my suspicion.

I don’t necessarily know yet what the weird hand issue that will give away AI copy is, but it’s there.

I’m not anti-AI…I use it to do research (that I check). I use it to tighten copy (and then do that final human overlay on the AI edit). I use it to extract a bunch of 30-90 second clips from any audio or video I have (and then select the best few by hand).

But that human overlay is where you will separate the output that is reasonable, from the output that sings.

Have you found this to be true in your own use of AI? Are you on the receiving end go AI-generated materials? Can you tell? If AI is the future, is the future milquetoast and does it have too many fingers?

What else is going on?

Optionality

Here’s the latest we’ve been up to with Optionality:

• Jory and I are converting the biweekly audio Conversationality to take place streaming live on LinkedIn. (So yes, now we have to be camera-ready…which for me means lipstick and a scarf!) Last week we had a great, tight, 25-minute conversation about generational divides in the workplace. The fact is that the majority of the broader workforce now falls into the GenZ and Millennial generations, so if their norms are different from your norms, it’s you who might consider adapting. Or not. But not adapting will mean heartache ahead IMO. Check it out here.

• We had a guest contributor provide a deep dive newsletter about dealing with collective trauma in the workplace and on your team. It’s a post for Premium members, but there is a preview, so you can see what it’s about. The bottom line is that the past 4 years, or even 8 years, or even entire lifetimes, have been A LOT for people. We need to figure out how to self-regulate, then help our teams co-regulate.

  Rachael Lowell Ellison
  is here to help us learn how. Read here.

• Jory wrote a post that gave me ALL THE FEELS about what it’s like to move as a woman in the world in general, and in male-dominated spaces more narrowly. The title alone may give you a clue why: Don’t inflame. Don’t Emasculate. Apologize incessantly. Survive.

• Registration is open for our next member webinar on June 18th and will zoom in, no pun intended, on the Creator Economy. Register here.

We’re planning to end our early adopter Premium Membership price at the end of this quarter, so if you’ve been toying with the idea of upgrading or subscribing for all the benefits of premium membership at the low low price of $299/year, now’s the time. We have our monthly live Office Hours for premium members coming in a week on June 12, so it’s perfect timing to join and get introduced to people live right away!

Out in the World

I’m putting my personal podcast, The Op-Ed Page, on indefinite hiatus, all because yet another platform is discontinuing a service I use with no notice and no transition suggestions. It was the straw that broke this camel’s back, given I had just moved my podcast to this service a little over a year ago. I recorded one last, quick episode…not to flounce, but to explain, and to leave a quick record that Episode 107 would be the last episode. I’m creating so much content, including audio content, for Optionality, I think the world can survive the end of this particular road. But seriously platform providers. Get it together. Listen to the sad tale here or anywhere you listen to podcasts.

That’s it for today. Until next time, please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on any or all of the above. This is basically my blog now! And as always, I appreciate a share of this newsletter or my podcast.

If I can help you break through the things that keep you stuck (or if you are intrigued by the idea of securing my advice for your initiative), set up your first introductory 30-minute consult for free by booking it in my Calendly. And you can always check out my new LinkedIn Learning Course, Telling Stories That Stick, a 57-minute course on crafting your stories for different audiences (media, investors, prospects, hiring managers) and ensuring those stories stick…and convey exactly what you hope to convey.

Thanks for reading!

-E