Latest / Hope + Possibilities: Trust, Leadership + Strategic Foresight / Every Word You Said, Forever and Always

Transcript

Every Word You Said, Forever and Always · Hope + Possibilities: Trust, Leadership + Strategic Foresight

• 0:24
  It's Nola Simon.
• 0:25
  I'm the host of the Hope and Possibilities podcast, and I wanna talk a little bit
• 0:32
  about what's happening with reputation and AI, and also communication.
• 0:42
  So
• 0:44
  I've written about this a little bit.
• 0:46
  I actually before…
• 0:50
  It was like maybe mid-July, I had somebody who actually critiqued
• 0:55
  an essay that I had written.
• 0:56
  I've been very tr- clear and transparent that I've been experimenting with AI.
• 1:02
  A challenge that I have is I don't necessarily see a whole lot of use for
• 1:05
  AI in the stuff that I actually work on other than actually helping me elaborate
• 1:12
  and write longer and more detailed essays.
• 1:17
  So I've ex- been experimenting with that because, I like writing.
• 1:21
  The parts that I don't like about writing are really actually related to training.
• 1:25
  So the takeaway questions, the reflections, and stuff that people
• 1:31
  add on to essays to help people really think for themselves,
• 1:36
  I'm not that interested in that.
• 1:38
  And so AI was helping me with that kind of stuff because I would often actually
• 1:44
  record a podcast and then use the transcript to really build out the essay.
• 1:49
  So it was based on my voice.
• 1:51
  It was based on… It was all transcripts from actually doing the podcast.
• 1:56
  And then I could weave it into actually something a little bit more essay-like,
• 2:01
  and then have these takeaway questions to help people think for themselves and
• 2:07
  do those reflections.
• 2:10
  I'm a role model.
• 2:12
  I'm not a trainer.
• 2:15
  I'm not a coach.
• 2:16
  I
• 2:18
  really leading by example, and that kind of training-type exercise isn't my forte.
• 2:26
  It's not really something that I interest- I'm interested in.
• 2:30
  But I do know that, some people do like that.
• 2:34
  So when I've been reflecting on how I've been using AI, it's not really necessary.
• 2:39
  And this person critiqued me because she felt that I hadn't… I'd lost my voice.
• 2:46
  I hadn't been specific enough, and the way that I was using it it sounded more
• 2:51
  like Claude than it sounded like me.
• 2:53
  I didn't agree because I had spent a lot of time on that, and
• 2:57
  as I said, I start with my voice.
• 3:00
  But what I found when I was actually working through everything she said
• 3:03
  and, you know, the emotions surrounding getting feedback that you don't love
• 3:10
  is how indefensible it really is.
• 3:12
  It's not like I can't write.
• 3:14
  I definitely can.
• 3:16
  But it's just more of, am I experimenting for the sake of
• 3:20
  experimenting, trying to see where it fits, and is it really that useful?
• 3:27
  So in terms of like SEO and AEO and, attracting people to a website
• 3:33
  and coming up in search, that's absolutely a, a part for it.
• 3:37
  I'm still going to be doing stuff like that because,
• 3:42
  again, I'm not that interested in figuring out keywords and how
• 3:46
  search works on the back end.
• 3:48
  I know that I have to do it.
• 3:49
  I know that I have to have information where people you know, if they're
• 3:53
  trying to locate me or and they're trying to locate somebody who thinks
• 3:55
  like me, it-- the systems will find me.
• 4:00
  That's really the discoverability of it all.
• 4:03
  But what's happened now is how it really affects reputation, and is
• 4:09
  it really worthwhile taking the risk of experimenting publicly?
• 4:14
  And I don't think it is.
• 4:16
  So last week, Substack introduced Pangram.
• 4:19
  So that means that it's a system that you can actually scan, work into, and have
• 4:25
  it rate whether it's 100% human or some percentage of AI assist or completely AI.
• 4:32
  It's unreliable like all AI detectors are.
• 4:36
  But some people really like the idea of being able to
• 4:39
  certify themselves 100% human.
• 4:44
  I don't.
• 4:46
  I think it feels like surveillance.
• 4:49
  I think it feels like the only people who really benefit this, from this are
• 4:55
  Substack because they're saying that they've been able to do something.
• 4:59
  And Pangram, who obviously get a load, a lot of pr- publicity out of it.
• 5:04
  Apparently they're up for a new funding round, and that's a big part of what
• 5:08
  their funding is going to be based on.
• 5:09
  So I'm trying not to talk that much about them anymore now that I've learned that.
• 5:14
  But
• 5:18
  How does it benefit you to have your users tattletale each-- on each
• 5:23
  other and mark yourself stuff, mark other people as less than human?
• 5:30
  I don't see how that benefits us at all.
• 5:34
  And also, like such a thing as malicious compliance exists, so you can't run it
• 5:39
  on posts that are less than 100 words.
• 5:44
  You can't run it on anything that has audio.
• 5:46
  You can't run it on anything that has video.
• 5:48
  You can't run it if there's a paywall.
• 5:52
  So personally, that's what I'm going to do, is any experimentation that I'm doing,
• 5:56
  I'm going to move that behind a paywall.
• 5:58
  And, if I make anything public, it's going to be less than 100 words.
• 6:03
  It's gonna have audio and video in it because I know the
• 6:05
  systems can't run that yet.
• 6:07
  Now, that will eventually change, and that's not gonna protect me.
• 6:10
  But I think that paywall really is actually going to do something.
• 6:14
  And that's the other part is like, why am I experimenting?
• 6:17
  What am I hoping to learn from it?
• 6:19
  Am I doing it just because it's there?
• 6:22
  Am I being lazy, really?
• 6:25
  And then LinkedIn saw the success or f-f, backlash or whatever they
• 6:30
  considered Substack to be, and they added a, seems like AI slop button so
• 6:37
  that anybody in the world could happen across your post, report it, and then
• 6:43
  we don't exactly know what happens.
• 6:46
  LinkedIn, as usual, is less than forthright.
• 6:50
  But honestly, it's right there in the language and the button
• 6:53
  seems like, so there's no proof.
• 6:57
  There's no test.
• 6:59
  There's just, this is the way I'm feeling about what you've presented
• 7:03
  as your work, whether it's AI or whether you actually wrote it
• 7:07
  yourself and I just don't like you.
• 7:10
  Anybody in the world could really just hit that report and
• 7:14
  LinkedIn would do something.
• 7:18
  Does that seem like it's got, the potential to be ripe for abuse?
• 7:23
  Does that concern anybody?
• 7:25
  Since we know that ageism is a thing, misogyny is a thing, racism is a
• 7:30
  thing, does that concern anybody?
• 7:34
  It's not like the internet is a very nice place these days.
• 7:39
  And that brings me to a new thing that happened over the weekend.
• 7:43
  There's a whole bunch of influencers, and somebody corrected me that the person
• 7:48
  they knew was not actually an influencer.
• 7:50
  She actually had a business.
• 7:51
  But because she posts on In- TikTok and Instagram and has large followings there
• 7:56
  and also attended a brand deal by OpenAI, she's functioning like an influencer.
• 8:03
  So you… I think that the line between thought leadership and
• 8:14
  influencer is a very interesting line.
• 8:16
  And I have also, going back to that misogyny thing, heard that the
• 8:20
  word influencer often gets negative connotation because it's mostly
• 8:25
  women who are successful influencers.
• 8:28
  A lot of them anyway.
• 8:31
  Anyways, this person that I've been following for a while
• 8:34
  because she's interesting, she has some really good ideas.
• 8:37
  She's, she's- She's got something, and I can't tell you that I like her
• 8:44
  because there's a lot of things that she says that I don't agree with.
• 8:48
  But she's captivating in lots of ways, right?
• 8:52
  So I look at her as somebody I could possibly learn from, mainly because I
• 9:00
  don't a hundred percent agree with her.
• 9:02
  It's like, what is she doing that's so successful, and
• 9:06
  why does it bother me, right?
• 9:09
  'Cause in lots of ways, what she says really bothers me.
• 9:11
  She deals with a lot of negative comments and a lot of homophobia in her comments,
• 9:19
  and it's sometimes off the chart.
• 9:21
  I don't know that I'd want to be publicly posting on TikTok
• 9:25
  these days, I gotta tell you.
• 9:26
  I have an account.
• 9:27
  I don't really use it that much.
• 9:30
  Anyways, so this brand deal kinda went off the charts.
• 9:33
  She didn't help herself.
• 9:34
  She posted a a tour of her room at this farm that they were staying in.
• 9:39
  They weren't paid apparently, but it was transportation
• 9:42
  and accommodations and food.
• 9:43
  And she was talking about AI and how wonderful OpenAI is while running a bath.
• 9:51
  You can imagine that the people who are concerned about water consumption in data
• 9:55
  centers tore her apart in the comments.
• 9:59
  But this is the concern that I have.
• 10:01
  So are there concerns about AI?
• 10:04
  Absolutely, there are, right?
• 10:06
  There's environmental concerns.
• 10:08
  There's concerns about jobs.
• 10:10
  There's concerns about
• 10:13
  ethics.
• 10:15
  Like the, the list of concerns is so deep, I don't even wanna go into it right now.
• 10:20
  But
• 10:24
  You have to look at th-this kind of thing, and she's She posted again later, and
• 10:29
  she's "I didn't know this was gonna be so controversial. I had no understanding that
• 10:36
  AI brought out this depth of feeling in people." For one, how do you go
• 10:43
  on a brand trip for a company, and the only thing you know about them is
• 10:48
  you think that you're a good brand?
• 10:51
  How do you not do the research, especially when you are presenting
• 10:54
  yourself as a thought leader who's capable of deep research?
• 11:01
  How do you not know
• 11:06
  anything about the reputation of the company who's actually
• 11:08
  brought you on this brand deal?
• 11:10
  And she wasn't the only one.
• 11:12
  There were other people who were invited to this thing as well.
• 11:16
  Now-
• 11:19
  It comes down to trust and reputation, right?
• 11:23
  So do they deserve to be torn apart in comments?
• 11:27
  No, I think we should be capable of having like civil conversations presenting these
• 11:32
  concerns without name-calling, without insults, and that's on both sides.
• 11:38
  It's not Chatham Rules on the internet, right?
• 11:41
  And the internet is gonna do what the internet is gonna do.
• 11:44
  Nobody can control that.
• 11:46
  So how do you present yourself in a way that optimizes for trust while
• 11:51
  preserving your reputation, right?
• 11:53
  And it's not by calling people lunatics.
• 11:56
  It's not by being defensive.
• 11:58
  It's having a whole PR strategy if you're going to be a public persona
• 12:03
  and you're actually going to be doing brand deals and talking about things
• 12:07
  that are controversial, is knowing your stuff and having that strategy
• 12:12
  of how you're owning it, how you're explaining it, how you're promising
• 12:16
  it, and have those values that align.
• 12:20
  Now
• 12:25
  I think that becoming a thought leader, becoming a creator these days is a
• 12:31
  really challenging position to be because everything is shifting so much and values
• 12:36
  are really under pressure and optics.
• 12:39
  Everybody's examining the optics.
• 12:42
  It's beneficial to have a really good understanding of what PR does, right?
• 12:49
  And how you preserve your reputation
• 12:56
  This is what's interesting to me about the future of work because, it's
• 13:00
  not like platforms are not trying to encourage people to be visible, right?
• 13:07
  LinkedIn just came out with a collaboration thing.
• 13:09
  You can actually add like five different collaborators to a post.
• 13:13
  It's designed to have people talk about things, and that's
• 13:19
  the way the platforms work.
• 13:20
  The more you talk th- about things, the more you get engagement.
• 13:24
  Then, ideally it's hopefully benefiting you and your company, but also
• 13:29
  it's benefiting those platforms.
• 13:30
  So you really have to assess when you're doing any of these types of activities
• 13:36
  like brand deals, like sponsorships,
• 13:41
  how is that company going to represent you as your own personal brand, right?
• 13:48
  Do you want your name tied to them?
• 13:50
  I think that we have to be a lot more careful.
• 13:53
  I think that it really comes down to employees as well too, is do you
• 13:57
  wanna be associated long term with these types of companies, right?
• 14:07
  I can't tell you that I would take a brand deal like this, and honestly
• 14:11
  I've done previous podcasts about, how I self-fund my podcast rather
• 14:16
  than look for sponsors because I have concerns like this in terms of
• 14:22
  Reputation, and also what it means when you're advocating for a third party that
• 14:28
  you have no control over, and you can't really influence either in terms of their
• 14:33
  decisions and how they present themselves.
• 14:35
  It's the Wild West right now.
• 14:39
  I know that a lot of- … creators make a lot of money from sponsorship
• 14:42
  deals- … and, brand partnerships and stuff like that too.
• 14:44
  But I… There's a real concern about trust with this on both sides.
• 14:51
  How do you manage that reputation piece, right?
• 14:55
  And it's not just about AI, but AI is infiltrating everywhere, right?
• 15:01
  So are you transparent with how you're using it?
• 15:05
  Are you doing it in such a way that it benefits you and your
• 15:09
  business- … and your relationships?
• 15:12
  And what kind of future is it helping you build towards, not just, immediately?
• 15:20
  That's really what we have to look into in terms of the future of work.
• 15:24
  So I think there's a real concern about alignment of values,
• 15:28
  communication, trust, and reputation.
• 15:32
  And it's not just for people who are self-employed as freelancers or creators.
• 15:39
  It's for employees and how they represent themselves as individuals,
• 15:46
  but also as part of the brand, the company that they work for, right?
• 15:51
  That's a big part of what your future is, and, y- you're presenting them as part of
• 15:56
  your resume or part of your work history.
• 15:59
  It's important that you're aligned, and that's something that I'm looking at.
• 16:04
  So how do you operate safely in a way that-
• 16:10
  Feels ethical
• 16:13
  And is going to get you where you want to be.
• 16:16
  Anyways, those are my concerns for this week.
• 16:18
  Thank you for tuning in.
• 16:20
  I'd love to hear your thoughts