Note: This article was written by Kathryn Deen.
AMPLIFY 2023, AM&P Network’s Content & Marketing Summit, is coming up fast. On June 27-28 in Washington, D.C., attendees will experience a truly collaborative event, highlighted by valuable Main Stage sessions such as the June 28 talk, “Practical Things You Can Do Right Now with Artificial Intelligence (And How to Use it Ethically).”
Generative AI tools seem to be the topic on everyone’s lips, but how do you move from the hype to practical, ethical applications today? And what are the impacts of these developments in such a fast-moving environment? Tasio co-founder Dray McFarlane and PolArctic LLC CEO Leslie Canavera will take to the Main Stage to impart their wisdom. Tasio provides AI solutions specifically for associations, and PolArctic focuses on the ethical use of AI for business.
Here are some highlights from AM&P Network’s recent conversation with McFarlane and Canavera about their upcoming AMPLIFY talk.
Signature: Why are AI and ethics so key to the industry right now?
McFarlane: I’ve been working as a software vendor for almost two decades focused on associations, and it felt like until Chat GPT came out in late 2022, “AI” was a bit of a bad word for associations. Since it’s become more popular and people can get their hands on it with ChatGPT, they are becoming more comfortable and more afraid at the same time. My team has experience using these technologies and we’ve discovered how to use AI in very practical ways. Things are evolving and changing so fast, and every time we speak about it, the conversation is dominated by questions about how to do this ethically.
Signature: How does this speak to both content and marketing?
Canavera: The big thing for both content and marketing is what you can have AI create for you, how far you should take that before you step in, and what you need to provide to make sure that you can claim it as your own. Content in particular is a sticky subject because the laws are probably going to impact what we can actually do in the near future. Marketing is almost easier because there are a lot of very specific, marketing-focused tools that you can use to make it easier to reach out to people in a personalized way.
Signature: What can attendees expect to take away from your talk?
McFarlane: We’ll share very practical examples of a lot of marketing usages for AI—producing, editing, and maintaining content. We’ll help people understand how you should use these tools, how to be careful about them, what you can and can’t trust, what information you should and shouldn’t provide, etc. In the process, we’ll go into a little bit on prompt engineering and will provide a worksheet that they can access online. We’ll also emphasize holding your vendors accountable, because if they’re not talking about ethics, they’re probably doing something wrong.
Canavera: I’m hoping people take away a checklist of some thoughts and questions they should ask themselves when they’re starting to use these tools. Even though it’s fast and easy for AI to produce content, I want them to learn to take a step back and look at it a bit deeper to make sure their brand isn’t tarnished by something they put out there; for instance, making sure there’s no plagiarism. Another thing to stay on top of is the regulations; they are changing daily, and that’s something they need to be checking and verifying.
Register here for AMPLIFY to hear from these experts IN PERSON and many other industry experts.