How to Use AI Effectively & Ethically for Your Business
When I was a kid and was first introduced to the idea of artificial intelligence, commonly known as AI, I definitely thought it would be a lot more like that 2001 movie with Jude Law and Haley Joel Osment. While we haven’t seen the rise in AI result in self-aware androids walking among us (not yet anyway), the role of artificial intelligence in our daily lives is already starting to have significant, and sometimes terrifying, implications for how we do our jobs and go about our daily lives.
What Is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
In the last few years, we’ve seen AI be increasingly used for creating art and creative works with tools such as Midjourney and OpenAI’s DALL-E that can generate artwork and images based off of a short text prompt.
The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a platform that can generate copy and text based off of a short prompt, has already started to disrupt a number of industries and aspects of our society. Teachers and professors have had to reevaluate their teaching methods, as it is now possible for a student to generate an extensive essay or almost any topic in a matter of seconds. Everything from legal documents to screenplays can be created in an instant.
Nearly every digital platform that our team uses on a daily basis has started to incorporate AI tools in some way to their platforms. Squarespace offers AI tools to help write copy and Canva and Photoshop will both allow you to quickly edit marketing images with ease.
While some of these tools could help you save a lot of time while running your business, it’s important to learn more about how artificial intelligence works and the ethics of AI before you rush to utilize these tools into everything you do.
So, How Do AI Tools Learn?
A lot of time, research and development had to go into the creation of these AI tools, but the key thing to remember as a user of these tools is that they have to be trained by humans on how to respond to our prompts. This training involves a variety of factors, but primarily it involves the scraping and consumption of existing digital content to learn how humans naturally write, create, and solve problems.
AI tools use public website content, artwork, books, movies, and potentially your own private documents (if you use Google), to learn. The scraping of private documents has begun to raise security concerns, especially after a misleading new policy led some users of Zoom to believe even their private video calls would be used for AI training (they might be if you provide consent).
In a world that is increasingly digital, more and more of our data and actions will be monitored and used to inform how AI works. If you run a small business that works with client and customer data, you will want to stay informed about all the tools you use to conduct your business, if they are using your data to train AI tools, how it is being utilized, and if there are any concerns about your clients’ or customers’ privacy.
Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property
In addition to privacy concerns about the use of personal data for training purposes, the fact that AI uses copyrighted material and intellectual property to train is already raising red flags. Authors, screenwriters, and other creatives have seen their copyrighted work copied and utilized to create AI graphics and copy. This can serve to dilute their claim to their own original work.
For example, in 2022 an AI-generated piece won an award in an art competition. This caused controversy, as some considered this a form of plagiarism that relied on the original artwork of others. In 2023, Sarah Silverman, among others, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for using their copyrighted work to train ChatGPT. In August 2023, a federal judge ruled in a separate case that copyrights could only be applied to human created works. This opens up a lot of questions about how AI will be utilized in the future or how works created with AI will be perceived.
We are also currently in the middle of a historic strike of screenwriters and actors in Hollywood, and AI and intellectual property is at the forefront of negotiations as studios are planning to use AI to recreate an actor’s likeness without compensation and to write scripts without having to pay writers.
As the landscape continues to shift around AI, copyrights, and intellectual property, it is important that you stay informed about what is considered legal and ethical when it comes to using AI in your own work for your business.
How to Use AI for Your Business
While we might not yet know all the legal ramifications of using AI, here are some guidelines to follow to ensure you are being thoughtful with this new technology.
When NOT to Utilize AI
The following are examples of when NOT to utilize AI in your business:
Don’t use it to create anything that you want to copyright, such as your logo, a book cover, your tagline or a catchphrase.
Don’t use it when you don’t have the knowledge of the topic to know whether the AI is correct or not. AI will repeat anything it finds online, and is not always able to discern if that content is accurate. Sharing inaccurate information can erode customers’ trust in your business.
Don’t use it to develop anything that you are selling to your customers as your intellectual property. This could be seen as misusing someone else’s copyrighted material and you could be opening yourself up to legal risk.
Don’t use it as a placeholder for getting real input from real people about your business. While AI has access to a wealth of information, it reflects the same biases as the people who created it. This means it can still perpetuate racism, sexism, classism and other biases. That’s why including real people in your feedback process is more important than ever.
Great Ways to Use AI for Your Small Business
Just because there are legal and ethical concerns with AI doesn’t mean you can’t use it at all in your business. Here are some great examples of ways to utilize AI when creating content for your business.
Use AI for short pieces of copy that won’t need to be copyrighted. This includes things like email subject lines, short social media copy, or instructional text for filling out a form.
Use AI to reformat content for different platforms. For example, you could enter blog post copy and ask for 10 tweets or short excerpt posts to pull out from that blog post. Since you own the source material and you’re a subject matter expert, you’ll be able to confirm the content that the AI creates is accurate and on-brand.
Use AI to improve accessibility for things like writing alt-text for images or to create auto-captions for your YouTube videos – just be sure to review the text to ensure it makes sense, as AI is not perfect.
Use AI for very minor photo editing, such as extending a frame to allow for more blank space for text or a graphic or to edit out something in the background.
Use AI to improve customer service with things like auto-responders and chatbots, as these tools often allow you control over some of the logic and copy that is presented.
As artificial intelligence becomes more advanced, we’ll continue to look for other ways to ethically utilize it in our business without compromising the intellectual property of other creatives! In the meantime, if you want to learn more about AI ethics, we encourage you to follow Casey Fiesler, a information science professor who stays on top of the legal and ethical concerns around artificial intelligence.
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Meet the Author:
Jen Siomacco - Founder and UX Designer
Jen has worked in technology, marketing, and publishing for ten years. After years as a CX/UX designer in the corporate world, Jen co-owned an independent wedding magazine prior to starting VVITCH Digital Agency. Now, after years in both the corporate and entrepreneurial worlds, they are committed to helping small businesses grow into revolutionary brands.
