Artificial Intelligence is a topic on the minds of virtually everyone these days; just a decade ago, the majority of what anyone heard about AI had to do with science fiction movies or discussions in advanced computers at technology conferences. Today, AI is here in a big way and the mystique of it has employees in blue-collar towns like Sapulpa concerned.
Joe Krout, Sapulpa transplant from Tulsa who has become embedded in the community with projects like the restoration of the Bell Building and the creation of Diggum-Deep Mortuary, spoke about AI at a recent Sapulpa Chamber of Commerce Business Over Breakfast event, where about 25 local businesses owners and Chamber members were present. The breakfast was held at Steak & Eggs, 1112 E Taft Ave.
Joe Krout is a graphic designer by trade. Through his work with businesses, branding, and the creation of digital assets, he’s run across artificial intelligence as a regular question in his line of work, forcing him to learn more about how to apply it to his projects sensibly and ethically.
Krout began his talk by trying to appease the concerns of the modern-day employee by relaying the truth about what AI currently is, for the most part—a seven-year-old child. Though it sounds overly simplistic, Krout reminded us that artificial intelligence models operate based on the information that we give them.
“It knows everything that you’ve poured in his head,” he said. “It can regurgitate facts. It can operate on a certain level, but it lacks the depth that a seven-year-old doesn’t have—they don’t have a great deal of empathy. They don’t have a great deal of experience. They don’t have a great deal of common sense. We have a starter platform here, but it’s not terribly sophisticated.”
In that way, Krout says, AI doesn’t have the critical thinking skills and contextual understanding skills needed to operate on the same level as a functioning adult would, for example. “It has no emotional intelligence,” Krout says.
That doesn’t mean everything you’ve ever heard about AI is false, or that it’s useless.
“It’s a great place (to start) instead of starting with a blank page,” Krout says. “If you’re not a fantastic writer, or you’re struggling with topics for a talk, or you have to make presentation, you can dump a large amount of information into it.” He expanded on that point with a real-life example. “I took two pages of gobbledygook from an engineer and turned it into three sentences that the majority of the room could understand.”
However, one of the major drawbacks of AI is that if you ask for information it doesn’t have, it may just fabricate it based on what it thinks you want to see. “You still have to read it,” he says. “When AI makes a mistake, they don’t call it a mistake, they call it a ‘hallucination.'” Krout then referred to a case last year where a judge in New York sanctioned lawyers who submitted a legal brief written by AI that included fake quotes cited court opinions that didn’t exist. Krout referred back to the analogy of a seven-year-old. “Are they going to lie? Yeah. Are they going to make something up? Yeah. And that’s what AI does; it sort of fills in the blank.”
So if someone using AI has to verify the information it’s giving you is correct, what’s the point of using it in the first place?
“One of the most practical ways to use it is in marketing,” Krout says. “If you’re really good with aluminum and recycling, you don’t necessarily have to be a wordsmith. This is a tool to help make up for an area where maybe you’ve been asked to do one more thing. Maybe the thing is that you’ve got five minutes and you have to put out five Facebook posts this week for your company. AI can help you achieve that,” Krout says.
Krout also says there’s a lot to be gained by using AI for research. “Now, you have to double-check your research, but if you say ‘I want to expand our business to this area, tell me who else is doing this in our area, tell me what their strengths are, tell me how long they’ve been in business,’ and all that information if it’s been dumped into AI, he starts giving it back to you. So in some ways, it’s like talking to the smartest person in the room, because it’s a gathering spot for information. But at the same time, it doesn’t have a context for what that information is, so you have to watch it, make sure it doesn’t fill in the blanks.”
In the coming months and years, Krout says we’re going to see AI get better at overcoming its weaknesses. “The shortcomings it has right now, it will eventually evolve past,” he said. “I’d say we’re about 5 years from not believing anything you see on the internet, referring to newer AI capabilities involving audio and video that can fool the viewer into believing a celebrity is doing or saying something that never really happened. “Everybody’s BS detector has to step it up a notch, because AI is stepping up the game as far as what BS is.”
In the end, Krout encouraged business owners to do their research and learn about how to use AI as a tool to help them in their business instead of being fearful about what it could bring about. “AI will not replace employees, but employees who learn to use AI will,” he said.
The Sapulpa Chamber holds Business Over Breakfast meetings once a month. To learn more about the benefits of being a chamber member, visit sapulpachamber.com
