AI: Friend or Foe? Our lens of the future

I’ve got a soft spot for AI tools and, who wouldn’t? Since the covid pandemic crashed our party and over-digitized out lives, we’ve been all about this digital buddy, especially with Chat GPT swooping in like a superhero! TBH, they’ve been lurking around like the cool kids at school since forever! We’ve been chatting up Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri about the weather and trivia, thinking we were having deep conversations, when all along we were just prepping for a future where our assistant would be a mashup of Google, YouTube, and Wikipedia! Welcome to the Chat GPT party!

Life savior or unknown devil?

My first instinct was to raise an eyebrow. How could one app/tool possibly possess all the answers? Did we really sit around sifting through endless articles back in the day, only to have 99% ready info served up on a silver platter? It seemed too good to be true. Yet, human ingenuity knows no bounds. AI tools of today app not only provide information with lightning speed and pinpoint accuracy, but it also takes notes and learns on the fly. From crafting poetry and dazzling product ads to spinning captivating book blurbs and cracking complex physics equations, it can do just about everything. Infact, I used the help of AI tools to refine this blog about AI! And image creation? That was the next milestone that swept tech enthusiasts off their feet!

For businesses, it’s about automating tasks, optimizing processes and driving profits by reducing human errors, increasing efficiency and making data driven decisions. Personalized advertising, predictive analysis and chatbots have a proven track record of significantly boosting ROI for business. Businesses that use AI reportedly have better conversion rates and reduced operational costs.

Fun facts

• Did you know that AI-generated art has been exhibited in prestigious galleries, challenging our traditional notions of creativity?
• AI can dream! Sort of. Google’s DeepDream project showcased how neural networks can be used to create trippy, dream-like images. Cool.
• AI is responsible for tailoring your streaming recommendations on Netlfix and curating personalized ad across the internet.
• AI can beat humans at complex games like Go and Chess.
• AI can detect earthquakes and detect cancer from scans with great accuracy.

Incredible potential of AI

Why I am thrilled by the incredible potential of AI-powered tools:

• The exhilarating advantage of speed – no longer do I need to wade through countless articles to extract the information I seek. Instead, I receive concise, distilled insights right at my fingertips, and I have the power to refine my input questions to direct the focus of the results!
• As a dedicated working mother, I find that AI serves as my personal assistant—a modern-day Jeeves, if you will. It’s like having a genie at my fingertips, transforming everyday possibilities into extraordinary realities!
• Intriguing insights driven by comprehensive data analysis that transcend mere opinions –
• Detail and Precision: Elevating Excellence
• The iteration functionality opens up a world of possibilities, dramatically enhancing productivity and creativity by allowing teams to refine and perfect their projects with each cycle.
• A stunning array of data awaits! This is like Google on steroids! From captivating images and catchy songs to evocative poetry, insightful blogs, and engaging stories — including technical writing, ingenious Excel formulas, a wealth of quotes, trending hashtags, and delicious recipes. The possibilities are truly limitless!
• Last but certainly not least, stands firmly against providing any assistance that could enable you to circumvent the law. For example, hacking instructions, or how to build a bomb and offering tax evasion advice are out of question. Sorry folks!

Not always the savior

We must thoughtfully explore the potential of AI, for there are certainly some less exhilarating facets to consider.

• The captivating abyss of the internet, magnified – will you dive in, or hesitate? It; easy to get hooked on it when answers come so easy!
• The intriguing ethical dilemmas surrounding artistic ownership—particularly in relation to inspiration versus plagiarism—continuously spark fervent debates. These issues can, and have, led to significant legal disputes and detrimental impacts on the creativity and livelihoods of talented artists.
• Engaging content but also carries the risk of being generic if the ideas lack originality or fail to reflect the author’s unique voice. That’s why I view AI primarily as a powerful refinement tool rather than a means to produce entire blog posts or technical content. Ultimately, it’s a matter of personal choice, and I respect all perspectives!
• While previously deemed too easy by those who relied solely on books for research, this convenience has transformed into a vital necessity for today’s generation. With attention spans often likened to that of a goldfish, we must examine how this evolution is reshaping our learning experiences—and whether we are truly absorbing any knowledge in the process.

Love them or loathe them, AI-powered tools are undeniably part of our future! However, not all AI solutions are created equal. Each one offers unique capabilities and delivers varied results based on its design. To maximize your investment, explore the table below showcasing each AI’s unique selling proposition and skill set!

AI Skillset Table

Chat GPT – The Chatty one! A conversational tool, ChatGPT is that know-it-all friend who always has something to say! It’s perfect for conversations, writing assistance and creative pieces like poetry. If you’re after witty quotes and catchy punchlines, with chat GPT you’ll be spoilt for choice. https://openai.com/

CoPilot – The productivity pro! If you want efficiency at work this is your guy. From drafting emails to summarizing documents. Technical writing has never been the same! Only better and faster with copilot. Copilot | Microsoft 365

Perplexity – Same as Chat GPT but better for research and academic purposes. Schools and some government organizations that block ChatGPT for data security and privacy reasons. This is where Perplexity comes in handy. https://www.perplexity.ai/

Dall E 3 – Recently released by OpenAI, it is the latest iteration of their text-to-image AI model and represents a significant advancement in generating high quality and contextually accurate images based on written prompts. It can be accessed on OpenAI’s platform ChatGPT.

MuseNet – This model from Open Ai can compose music across multiple genres. MuseNet can generate music that fits user-specified prompts, such ‘a piano and vilin duet in the style of Bach’ or ’80s rock with synths’. What symphony would you create? It can be accessed on OpenAI’s platform ChatGPT.

Jetpack AI – Jetpack AI is a feature offered by its namesake plugin for WordPress which provides AI-powered assistance for content creation, designed to make it users to generate, edit and optimise content. https://jetpack.com/

Viser X – is a digital marketing and software development offering various solutions to enhance business online presence. While i haven’t used their services myself, they have garnered positive reviews, specifically for SEO and web design projects. Perfect for small- and large-scale businesses. https://viserx.com/

Davinci – Davinci art generator like many other apps, will create good quality art in seconds. All you have to do is enter a prompt and select an art style. It has a free version with limited features and compulsory ad watching to generate your art/image. I’ve got to say it pales in comparison to Dall E 3. https://davinci.ai/

Video GPT – My first experience with trying this one out. Once I selected the style, some key words and entered my storyline prompt, it started to generate the script the voice and the video. Sadly the video is a collation of most relevant stock photos or the animated version of them, not actual moving animation. It still makes for a great tool for school and work presentations https://videogpt.io/

Content Apps with AI functionalities – What’s the difference between AI Powered tools and apps with AI functionality? AI tools are self-learning data driven power tools based on a rich data set. Apps with AI functionalities are tools that use some aspects of AI for image enhancement, integration etc. aka Airbrush https://airbrush.com/blog, Mojo https://www.mojo-app.com/ , Canva https://www.canva.com/, Adobe Firefly https://www.adobe.com/au/products/firefly.html. the list goes on. Airbush delivers AI-powered image generation capabilities and allows users to create original stock photos, NFTs, art, and more in just seconds. Adobe Firefly is ideal for integrating AI-generated images into photos and offers powerful editing capabilities and seamless integration with other Adobe products2. This is great for enhancing and modifying photos to a desired theme instead of creating an image from scratch with text prompts. Midjourney https://midjourneyai.online/ and Lensa AI are similar apps that are great for image integration.

All in all

Overall, I’m absolutely thrilled about the potential of AI. I genuinely believe we can harness it ethically to enhance our lives and confront significant challenges like climate change and global hunger in the future! I’m eager to hear your insights in the comments below. Until next time! Be sure to explore AI further! 🙂