Just weeks after OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT, more and more people have been utilizing this advanced tool to automate tasks and create AI-generated text, image, video, and other content types. Being the fastest-growing web platform, it is being hailed as a dependable tool to simplify tasks at work and school as much as it is being denounced for the dangers it poses on the future of humanity.
Whether we love or hate it, we must embrace ChatGPT and other generative AI apps as an emerging technology changing how we live and work.
What is Generative AI?
ChatGPT is one of the most widely used generative AI apps. Boston Consulting Group defines Generative AI as “a set of algorithms, capable of generating seemingly new, realistic content—such as text, images, or audio—from the training data.”
It is an artificial intelligence tool that creates new and unique content, including images, music, and text. While it has many benefits, it also has some potential drawbacks that users must consider. This article will explore the cons and pros of generative AI and its possible impact on society.
Advantages of Generative AI
With its power to generate text, audio, and other images, this AI type is a blessing to many professionals, particularly marketers, and entrepreneurs. Here are some of the clear benefits of this technology to society:
Enhanced Efficiency and Productivity
Generative AI can automate tasks and reduce task time and costs. This feature is handy in industries where repetitive tasks can be time-consuming and expensive. Workers under these companies can focus more on other more impactful activities, boosting their productivity while reducing the use of resources on routine work.
Personalized Content
Content producers and professionals can use generative AI to create customized user experiences. This benefit can enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty, as users feel that they are receiving personalized attention. These applications can pull data and information from the dataset it was trained on to produce the most suitable content or relevant suggestions.
For example, a company can leverage its social media campaigns using generative AI to create custom content targeting a particular buyer persona.
Sophisticated Artworks
Creative professionals can use generative AI to enhance artistic expression, leading to innovative art and music. Professionals can even use AI in the development of new products.
Product developers can create prototypes of new products with this advanced tool. A good example is DALL-E, a generative AI that can generate AI-generated images.
More Accurate Results
Generative AI can generate highly accurate content, especially in number-crunching professions such as accounting and finance. Experts in these fields can capitalize on generative AI to produce highly accurate financial forecasts based on historical data. Companies can have more informed decision-making and better financial outcomes with more reliable results.
Scalable Production
Quick and efficient production of content is possible with generative AI, making companies more scalable. Marketers and professionals can benefit from this technology through fast and consistent content production and distribution to different channels and platforms.
High Adaptability
From the dataset it has been trained on, generative AI can produce different results from different patterns, making it highly adaptable. For example, the transportation industry can use generative AI to adapt to changing traffic patterns and optimize routes for vehicles. This modern approach can result in highly efficient and cost-effective transportation systems.
Disadvantages of Generative AI
While the above advantages of Generative AI can revolutionize various industries, it is not a foolproof technology that businesses can rely on. Users should note multiple risks and limitations to avoid catastrophic consequences. Here are some of them:
Biased Output
ChatGPT and other forms of Generative AI only base their generated content on the data they are trained on. So, if the training data is biased, then the output generated by the AI will also be biased.
These results can have severe consequences, especially in industries such as healthcare and finance, where accurate and unbiased results are crucial.
Lack of Control
Generative AI can sometimes generate unexpected and undesirable results because it only operates using algorithms that may lack context. Your lack of control and fine-tuning makes its output unreliable. This fact can be a problem in industries such as design and marketing, where the output’soutput’s alignment with your company’s brand image and aesthetic is paramount.
Intellectual Property Concerns
This technology can generate content that is direct copies of copyrighted materials. This action can raise concerns about intellectual property and other legal issues. Being accused of intellectual property infringement can damage your company’s reputation.
Data Privacy Concerns
Generative AI lacks a mechanism for screening whether large amounts of data come from confidential sources. This issue can raise concerns about data privacy and security, especially in healthcare and finance industries, where sensitive personal information is involved.
Reliance on Training Data
Generative AI only pulls its results from the training data it receives. In the case of ChatGPT, its developers only trained it in data until 2021. This fact limits the generated output, leading to incomplete, biased, or irrelevant results, especially when real-time and latest information is required.
Ethical Concerns
Generative AI can raise ethical concerns, such as creating realistic images or videos of people without consent. Generating AI-generated photos can also pose problems in industries such as law enforcement. Using generative AI to create images of suspects can lead to false accusations and wrongful convictions.
Lack of Context
While Generative AI surpasses human’s ability to generate insights from data, it cannot still assess the situation where it is by itself. It needs human input to find out the context of where and when it is used for.
Industries that Benefit from Generative AI
In such a short time, generative AI has become a rapidly growing app that has impacted many industries. This cutting-edge technology can produce new and innovative content that can help companies streamline their workflows, improve their customer experience, and gain a competitive edge. Knowing these benefits, tech giants like Microsoft and Google invest billions of dollars in AI research startups like OpenAI to leverage advanced algorithms and deep learning techniques to further improve generative AI capabilities, especially in the following industries:
Marketing and Advertising
With generative AI, marketing and advertising agencies, such as LeapOut, have created compelling and engaging content, including images, videos, and text, to improve their connection with their target audience. By leveraging advanced machine learning algorithms, generative AI can also help companies optimize their campaigns and improve their return on investment.
Creative Design
Designers looking for new inspiration and methods to create new and innovative designs can benefit from generative AI. By analyzing existing structures and using that data to create unique designs, generative AI can help designers come up with fresh ideas and push the boundaries of what is possible. This improvement is significant in industries like fashion, where companies are always looking for the next big trend.
Healthcare
The healthcare industry can also benefit significantly from the use of generative AI. By analyzing large amounts of patient data, doctors and researchers can capitalize on generative AI’sAI’s power to identify patterns and generate insights from data that may not be apparent to the human eye. This development can lead to breakthroughs in treatment and diagnosis and ultimately improve patient outcomes.
Finance
The finance industry highly benefits from generative AI by analyzing a large volume of financial data to help companies identify patterns and trends in the market and make more intelligent investment decisions. This work process can help companies optimize their portfolios and improve their overall return on investment.
Gaming
Generative AI can help developers create realistic and interactive environments and immersive gaming experiences that keep players engaged and returning for more. Gaming developers can also use this technology to generate unique and dynamic content such as levels, enemies, and quests, helping developers keep their games fresh and exciting.
Predictive Analytics
Generative AI is a big help to digital marketers in harnessing the power of predictive analytics to anticipate customer needs and behavior. Generative AI can analyze data on customer preferences, browsing history, and purchase behavior and can help marketers identify trends and patterns that can inform their marketing strategies. This practice can help marketers launch more targeted campaigns, reduce churn, and increase customer lifetime value.
How LeapOut Uses AI
As a digital marketing agency, we use ChatGPT and other generative AI applications to help us streamline our workflow and improve productivity. But we use this cautiously, knowing the disadvantages of relying entirely on this technology.
Our content team uses AI apps to create outlines for articles and research. These tools save us hours by helping us with conceptualization, automation, and other tasks. But even though AI can generate decent text, we still rely on our team’s writing, design, and creativity skills in tailoring our content to resonate with our audience.
We understand the limitations of AI, especially in its lack of context, “human touch,” and real-life content, which are essential in creating impactful results, especially after the release of the Google “helpful content” update.
The latest algorithm change of the search giant urges marketers to include customer testimonials, reviews, and other content showing the real-life experiences of customers. Generative AI apps can only produce this content with input from marketers and producers.
Generative AI’s Impact on Digital Marketing
Based on research and personal experience as a digital marketing company, generative AI extensively assists various industries. Because of its list of benefits, it is revolutionizing the workplace. Aside from marketing, more and more businesses have benefited from its tremendous power.
But while we have been on our way to incorporating AI apps in our workflow, particularly in creating content, we still consider its role as a tool like calculators, laptops, and other sophisticated tools when they were first invented.
So far, generative AI tools are not a suitable replacement for content creators because of their limitations. To produce the best content that would impact your audience, you still need the experience and expertise of digital marketing professionals.
Tony Chua has been in the content writing profession for about a decade, specializing in writing SEO articles, blog posts, and social media copies for various small and medium enterprises and e-commerce sites. Before this, he also authored and edited news, press releases, features, scripts, and editorials for newspapers, magazines, and websites.
Tony is a Web Content Specialist for LeapOut Digital, who has worked for Beko, DMCI, Manulife, and US-based Clark Pawners and Jewelers. Aside from writing, he has experience in desktop publishing, graphic arts, web development, and video editing.
