Fictitious schools are a glimpse of our AI-driven future
There’s no doubt about it; generative AI saves time and elbow grease if you need to churn out large amounts of content.
The problem, when it comes to public communication at least, is that inaccuracy will soon become so “normal” that we’ll have even less trust in anything we’re told.
Take the reported case of real estate giant LJ Hooker, caught out mentioning fictitious schools in an ad for a rental property in the NSW Hunter region.
Turns out the ad, which boasted the property’s proximity to both Farley Primary School and Farley High School, was generated by ChatGPT.
An honest mistake, surely. How were the bots supposed to know those schools don’t exist?
The real issue, of course, is that human eyeballs didn’t check the ad and pick up the error.
Was any harm done? Some embarrassment for LJ Hooker, especially when the blunder was largely brushed off. After all, don’t most of us use ChatGPT these days? What’s the big deal?
Welcome to our future. Here’s where the true harm lies: Trust in corporations and government is already in a slump. How low can we go? A fair bit lower yet, it seems.
As more businesses and government agencies use AI to get through bloated workloads with diminished resources, we’ll all pay the price through increased errors and soaring community suspicion, with a corresponding death spiral for trust.
Whether it’s an ad, client email or major communication campaign, Generative AI can be amazing for producing first drafts. We humans need to take it from there.
Human-centered, credible communication must remain our focus if there’s any hope of getting the trust train back on the track.
