Latest / Limitless Living with Fredricka Davis / 078: How to Use AI Responsibly in Your Small Business

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078: How to Use AI Responsibly in Your Small Business · Limitless Living with Fredricka Davis

• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back to the Limitless Living Podcast.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Frederica Davis, your host, and today is our Tuesday sustainable success episode, where we talk about building a stronger, more profitable business without sacrificing your health, your freedom, or your life to do it.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, AI is all around us.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's very controversial, I know.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's not going anywhere.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I can say that pretty confidently.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: It can save you an enormous amount of time in your business, and it can also help you create an enormous amount of really mediocre work a whole lot faster.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, it can do worse than that when it is used carelessly.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: So today is not going to be a tutorial on GPT, Claude, Meta, or any of the other things or any of the hundreds of other tools coming to us.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I am not here to turn myself into your AI coach.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I am certainly not going to pretend I know everything about it.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: That said, I am continuously learning which tools are useful inside my own businesses, which ones are not, and where we need to be really careful with this.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: So what I do know after more than 34 years as a business owner is that every tool we bring into the business requires judgment.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: AI does not remove that responsibility.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: If anything, it makes the responsibility even greater.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, whether you think you use AI or not, I know some of you are out there thinking, well, I'm not using AI, I'm against AI, and I don't like what it stands for.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: The environment, this, that, the other thing, or I don't understand it, so I'm just not going to use it.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is that's going on in your head, there is a very good chance you are already interacting with it and doing it every day.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll give you some examples.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you use GPS and you receive traffic predictions, there it is.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: If your bank alerts you to a transaction that does not look like your usual activity, technology is looking for a pattern and then notifying you.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Your spam filter is sorting your email, your shopping and streaming services with all those recommendations that they keep giving you.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: There it is.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Your social media feed is deciding what to show you.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: When you click on something that you like, your social media feed decides, oh, she wants to see this and keeps giving you more of that.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sidebar, that's why I think it's important to either stay away from politics on social media or be willing to click on both left and right.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'll say that outright because if you only click on left, that's all you're ever gonna see, and you're coming from one viewpoint.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you only click on right, that's all you're ever gonna see because you're coming from one viewpoint and the algorithms will be sending you only one or the other.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Your social media feed is constantly watching what you're clicking on.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So then it can decide what it's gonna show you next.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And a little sidebar on this if you only click on things that go to the left side of politics or you click on things that go to the right side of politics, your social media feed is going to send you those things.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that's going to give you biased information instead of a broad range of information.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: So what I tell everybody is remember that whatever you're clicking on, if you click on pretty uh outfits on social media, it's going to send you more pretty outfits.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you click on politics to one side or the other, it's going to send you more of that.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it actually is steering how we all think instead of giving us a broader, more balanced view.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're on any of the social media platforms, I promise you you're using it.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And how about using your phone?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: We all have cell phones.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And how long has it been predicting the words we're going to type or spell checking us or your photos on your phone?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: You take a photo on your phone and automatically it recognizes your face.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're like everybody else, you're probably organizing your photos and backing them up into Google.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then it recognizes the face and organizes your pictures into a folder.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: There it is.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Your smartwatch.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: So many of us are walking around with smartwatches.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: These look for patterns in your movement, your sleep, your heart rate.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: We have been literally living with different forms of automation, algorithms, machine learning for a very long time.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Generative AI has just made the conversation a whole lot louder because now it can create words, images, video, and other material in seconds.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, literally seconds.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: But AI did not suddenly appear the day somebody opened up a Chat GPT account.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: So let me share an experience I had not too long ago around some of these tools.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was teaching at an event, another coach was hosting, and I had my meta eyeglasses on.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you don't know about the meta glasses, they have computer built into them.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: They have AI built into them, they have facial recognition that's going on behind the scenes with them.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: I have the meta sunglasses.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is not an endorsement.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: I will tell you firsthand, I love my meta glasses.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: However, I'm very cautious with them, and I'm going to share with you why.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because they can take pictures, they can take video, I can verbally tell my eyeglasses to send a text, delete a text, read a text to me as it comes in, and I can listen to my music without having an earbud stuck inside my ear.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of reasons I love my glasses.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that said, they do pose another challenge and another level of responsibility if you're wearing them and you're using them that we all really need to know about.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I was showing people at this event what the glasses could do.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I was completely open with everyone, telling them what they were doing, telling them how I was choosing to use them at that time.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody was fascinated with them and thought they were like the coolest things ever.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I had a woman there who I have known for many years, have a real genuine concern about them and the privacy.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And she was concerned about being recorded, the location information, and whether or not the proprietary material from the event was being captured.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Understandably, I understood this concern and I addressed it.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've known her for a long time.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was not secretly recording anything.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was not secretly recording teachings or secretly recording her or anyone else.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was very open and transparent about all of it.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I shared everything, the photographs afterwards, but I had to recognize her discomfort, of course.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that is an important part of the responsibility we all hold with the technology we use.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't get to decide that someone else should be comfortable just because I understand how I am using the device.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I went to an art show this past weekend with the same glasses and I was taking photographs and I used my phone as well as my glasses, but I used mostly my glasses because I didn't have to keep holding my phone or pulling it out of my purse and carrying it in my hand.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was seamless.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: But seamless does not mean thoughtless.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: So if I'm taking photographs in public, I'm careful about including children.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: I consider who's in the frame of the photograph and what I'm photographing.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, am I perfect?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And this is true.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: If I would have taken a picture with my phone of the entire event, I was going to capture families, adults, children, everything, whether it was on the glasses or on the phone.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Was it going to get a geotag?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Either way, it was going to do that.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Was facial recognition going to happen on some level?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Either way, because of the way the phones are set up and the way the glasses are set up.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the reality of things.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you're using your phone, same responsibility here that I am talking about.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: So the technology may make taking the picture easier, but again, it does not remove your responsibility for using the technology.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there are real privacy and security concerns.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: There are permissions, settings, storage choices, and location services to understand.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Many of those concerns also exist on your phone, though, that you are already carrying and taking pictures with.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's the reality of our world.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing: wearable technology adds some differences.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Another person may not notice it as quickly or understand what it is doing when it's coming from certain devices.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not saying you should or should not buy metaglasses.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the point here.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: The point is that when I choose the convenience of them, I also accept the responsibility that comes with it.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the same thing is true when I use AI in my business.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I do use it.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: I use it frequently.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: I recently needed to create a brochure with a different layout and I wanted to do it quickly.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: I could have done it in Canva myself, which I use and highly recommend for small business owners.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I could have spent a couple of hours arranging everything inside Canva and having it be just as good or maybe even better.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: But instead, I used AI to help create the initial layout.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: I gave it the information about my program.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: The expertise, the offer, the message, and the program itself were mine.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: AI helped me organize it and present what I had already created.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, within several minutes or less, honestly, and a little bit of back and forth, I had my layout.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: I moved it over into my normal process into Canva, edited the rest that I needed to, added my own photographs, and bim, bam, boom, I had my brochure in a fraction of the time it would have normally taken me.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a good use of AI for me as a business owner.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: It did not invent my knowledge, it helped me do something with my knowledge more efficiently.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: I also use AI to organize projects, looking for the missing steps that I might have overlooked or build my checklists or to create a first draft of something or repurpose something that I have already written.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I use it to identify patterns and how I'm using my time to help me maximize my efficiency.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: These are all things that can be extremely valuable when you own a small business and already have more ideas and responsibilities than hours in the day to do them.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: But AI assistance is not the same thing as handing over ownership of your thinking.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: If I create a podcast episode, the stories are mine.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: The professional experience is mine.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: I do not teach something I don't know simply because it's going to be quicker to ask AI to hand me a script or a paragraph that sounds convincing.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's got to be my voice, my teaching, my knowledge.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And anything that I do ask for edits in, I still question, I disagree with, I reshape, I fact check.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I throw it out and begin again.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: That is where I think the ethical conversation needs to begin for a business owner, not with whether AI is completely good or completely bad, but how we are choosing to use it.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: I often compare it to a kitchen knife, honestly.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Why a kitchen knife?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know that sounds funny, but a kitchen knife can help you prepare this amazing, beautiful, wonderful meal with love for the people in your life.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: In the wrong hands, it can cause irrevocable, terrible heartbreak and harm.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: The knife is only a tool.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: AI is more complicated, of course, than a knife because the systems themselves are built from information, decisions, and biases that we may not be able to see behind the scenes.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: But the comparison still helps you understand something that's very important.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Any powerful tool requires a responsible person using it.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: The train has left the station when it comes to AI.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's not going anywhere.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: We can be concerned about it all we want.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I certainly have concerns.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: It both excites me and scares the bejees out of me, if I'm being honest.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: But pretending it is not happening will not help you lead your business well.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thinking or saying you're not using it anywhere in your life is probably not quite accurate.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: So let me give you five responsibilities I believe every business owner really needs to consider.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, the first is privacy.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do not put private client information, employee information, health information, financial details, confidential conversations or proprietary material into any AI tool unless you fully understand where that information is going and how it is being stored or used.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: For those of us in wellness, coaching, health-related, financial or other trust-based businesses, this is especially important.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Saving 15 minutes of your time is not worth violating someone else's privacy.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: The second responsibility is consent.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you are recording someone, uploading their photograph, understanding their words, or using their story, does the person know?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Did the person agree get it in writing?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Are you using it in the way that they would responsibly expect you to?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: The ability to capture something does not automatically give you the right to use it.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: The third responsibility is accuracy.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: AI can sound absolutely certain and still be wrong.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you're teaching something, quoting research, sharing a statistic, or giving information that could affect someone else's health, money, business, or life, you need to verify it.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Ask for the resources and then look for the resources.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Verify them.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Research it yourself.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Consider what perspective may be missing from what AI has given you.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: For example, if I ask a broad health question in the United States to AI, I might receive a generalized conventional American medical answer.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: If I want to compare that with functional, integrative, traditional, herbal, or international approaches, I have to ask specifically.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then I have to evaluate what comes back and verify what comes back.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: AI works from information that it has been both trained on and then, depending on the tool, information that it can search across the internet.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now that information can be incomplete, it can be outdated, it can be biased, it can be missing the context that you actually need, and it can be information that somebody wrote on their blog post and was completely wrong about.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: The fourth responsibility you have is to continue to think.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Think on your own.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Technology has been correcting our spelling and predicting our words for years.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely convenient.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: However, ask yourself: are those skills that you used to have when it came to writing and spelling better or worse?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Are they becoming a little bit rusty because technology is repeatedly doing the work for you?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: My own daughter, who's in her fourth year of college, has told me that she feels like she has to work harder now in her fourth year of college than she did in high school because of the integration of AI into things.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: She recognizes that her writing process has changed as AI has become more commonplace in school.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: That does not mean we reject this technology.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: It means we keep using our minds.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's that old saying, use it or lose it.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you're going to use it, disagree with it, challenge it, ask another question, pose another hypothesis, read books, study, talk with people who have real experience.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Do not let the fastest answer become your only answer.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: The fifth responsibility is accountability.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: While I use AI frequently, and AI may help me create something, if it comes from my business, I am the one responsible for it.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: I am responsible for what I publish.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: I am responsible for the recommendation.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: I am responsible for checking whether it is accurate or not.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: I am responsible for how I use someone else's information, and I cannot blame the software after I put my name on it or my company's name on the result.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: This also applies to images.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Images are definitely scary.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that we come up with some decent regulation to protect people from having their images recreated without their permission, honestly.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see a mixture of untouched photographs and AI-assisted graphics in my business.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: I may give AI a real photograph of myself and have it place it into a branded graphic that I can then use on my website.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still careful, though, that that result looks like me and that I'm not using an altered image to make a false claim.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: I am still careful that the result looks like me and that I'm not using an altered image to make a false claim about where I was or what happened.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Is an AI-assisted image identical to an untouched photograph?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: No, of course not.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: But that does not automatically make it wrong.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: It means we need to understand what we are creating, why we are creating it, and whether it could mislead someone.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: So now if you're sitting there wondering how to best use AI or maybe how to start using AI in your business without becoming overwhelmed, I want you to take out one sheet of paper and make three columns.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: In the first column, you're gonna write keep human.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: The second, you're gonna write AI Can Assist.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: The third, you're gonna write automate after review.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Keep human includes your professional judgment.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: That means sensitive conversations, client relationships, values, final decisions, and the wisdom that you have learned throughout your life, through lived experience.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: In the AI can assist column, you might want to include things like organizing ideas, building an outline, preparing a checklist, creating a first draft, comparing possibilities, or helping you see a step you missed.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: In the automate after review column, you might include repetitive administration work, administrative work, reminders, routine follow-up, scheduling processes, or content formatting, depending on what tools you use and the information involved.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then I want you to choose three tasks that are taking too much of your time.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Not 33, but three.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Decide which, decide where each one belongs.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: The goal here is not to use AI everywhere.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is to remove unnecessary workload without removing yourself from the parts of your business where your presence actually matters.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: And over the next several weeks and months, I will share more about the ways that I'm using AI inside my businesses, what's actually saving me time, what has not worked, and where I believe we need to be careful.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also going to bring an expert on, Regina, to talk as well.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is really her level of expertise.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: So look for those because I'm learning too, and I will always tell you that.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I also believe business owners cannot afford to ignore this.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: We need to understand AI well enough to use it wisely, responsibly, and for good.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're interested in more practical ways to grow a stronger business without allowing it to consume your health or your life, visit Fredericadavis.com and join the priority list for my upcoming sustainable success accelerator.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if the wellness and life balance side of sustainable success right now is what feels off for you, maybe it needs a little more attention, you can also learn more about the Whole Woman Wellness Reset, which begins September 30th.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Early discounted registration is currently open.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: It closes on Saturday.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: And my free reset starter guide, if you want to get that, you can grab that on the website.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for spending part of your Tuesday with me.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you know another business owner who is trying to figure out how to use AI without losing her voice, her sanity, her judgment, or the human side of her work, please share this episode with her.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Please give the show a good review because that helps other people find it.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: And until next time, be rooted, be resilient, and be limitless.