Interesting question posed to me yesterday

[mrb999]

Since MS's Nonprofit Global Leaders Summit, I have been talking to many people in our organisation about the benefits of Gen AI and trying to allay fears that it is going to take their jobs. However, yesterday a person getting started with her career asked me an excellent and very valid question that I did not know how to answer. I thought I would bring it to this community to see if anyone had thoughts or ideas on how to respond to it. This person is a creative person.

The question: "I understand that AI can help me do my job. However, I get immense job and self-satisfaction from the creative process and knowing that I am the one who created the content, design, whatever it might be. If I offload that to AI, where does the job satisfaction come in?"

Thoughts?

[#2]

@mrb999 

Thank you so much for posing this question.  It is such a great perspective, my mom is a college English teacher and we have many rich discussions about the relationship between AI and the creative process, being able to still find your voice in the time of AI and more.  

Though many of us think AI is a great tool to get started in composing and email or writing a draft, that is not the required or only use case from my perspective.  You can use AI to inform your perspective through research, be your brainstorming buddy and more without asking it to draft anything for you but, instead, help you think through what you are going to draft and what you might consider as you do draft your work.  That leaves you to write where you get satisfaction from that or where you want to hone your skills.  

[#3]

@mrb999 

I love this question! Speaking personally, I also love the creative process of writing and designing. I like the ownership and satisfaction I get from creating something from scratch.

But for me, AI has become an important co-creator and brainstorming partner in my process that helps creativity rather than replaces my voice or does the work for me. I use Copilot to co-create in the following ways:

Breaking through writer's block: Starting from a blank page can be hard. I often use Copilot to help formulate a starting point. For example, I can prompt, "I need to write about the importance of XYZ, what are some key points that I should cover? What are the challenges that people face in this area?"

Getting feedback on early drafts or approaches: When I'm starting something, I can ask Copilot for early considerations. A prompt might be: "Here's a statement on XYZ topic. What are some other points of view I should consider? What are some questions I should cover?"

Editing and refining: As someone once said, "Brevity is the soul of wit". I can take a large braindump of ideas and thoughts and then ask Copilot "Can you please write a summary of this?" It helps me summarize and organize my own writing so that I can move to a second draft.

Time savings: A critical value of Copilot for me is productivity - I free up time from daily things like emails, meeting summaries, and more - so that I have more time for creating.


I also use Copilot to react to what it gets *wrong*. If I ask it to write a summary of content at an early draft, and I feel like it has missed my core message - it's a chance to me to revisit what I've created and see why it pulled something else. Was I not clear? Did I unintentionally overrepresent something secondary? Do I need to build out my thesis more explicitly?

You might be interested in some of the processes that @Beth_Kanter  posted on LinkedIn as a behind-the-scenes look at co-creating a recent webinar with AI https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bethkanter_recap-nonprofits-ai-a-conversation-with-activity-715634371...

[#4]

I appreciate your question and I want to share that I create training content and enjoy the artistic aspect of that work. I like to brainstorm and design my own concepts for what I want to achieve and use copilot to assist me with the structure. I also use it to collect and summarize research. AI enables me to devote more time to crafting engaging activities (my favorite part) since I have a head start on some of the more mundane parts of content development.

[#5]

Hi @mrb999,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and asking a thought-provoking question.

I also receive joy from my work and self-satisfaction. People are still at the center of jobs. AI is there to assist you, not to take over. You, as a person, is still 'the boss' of what is created, how it is created, and why it is created. When prompting an AI, the way you craft a prompt and how many refinements you ask, will impact the generated response. Once it is generated, you don't need to nor should you take that at face value. You should review, edit, and refine to generate your vision. The goal is to make your job easier, faster, and leave more room to spend on what gives you joy and self-fulfillment in work.

I personally find (sometimes) getting started on a project is the hardest part. For me, I appreciate using AI to make me stop procrastinating. I completely scratch, review, refine, and edit what was created for me. This allows me to better understand what I actually want and got me started on that creative process.

[#6]

@mrb999 

That's a really great question! Personally, I use AI as an aid and complement to my work rather than as a replacement for original ideas or thoughts. For example, if I am preparing a PowerPoint presentation for a meeting, I can use AI to assist (if needed) with creating visually appealing slides and layouts to best present my content, but the content itself and the narrative of the presentation will be my own responsibility. So, AI does have its value in enhancing things like efficiency, productivity, and quality of the work, but it doesn't replace the originality of thoughts/ideas. For me, my usage is on an "as needed" basis.

[#7]

I love everyone's perspective on this topic so far! There are some great points and ideas on this thread.

@mrb999, 

I think many people feel the same way as the person that posed the question regarding finding joy and pride in things we create or contribute to whether it's at work or otherwise. 

I echo what everyone has already said, but how I personally view and use AI is like a digital assistant. It helps me compile data faster instead of manually, which can be tedious. It also gives me suggestions on voice and writing style when I have writer's block, which is a very helpful tool for those of us who are in marketing/comms roles!

Overall, I think it's a great companion to help us be more efficient throughout our day. Kind of like what Clippy was to Microsoft Word in the 1990s only on a much larger scale and can do so many more things (sorry, Clippy!) 

Much like all the tech that's available today, it's intended to make our lives easier, not necessarily do all the work for us. In the end, it's up to us to decide how we use it.

[#8]

Reading this made me think of when I was resisting making the change from film photography to digital. I was travelling a lot and really enjoyed the process and result of setting up and taking, then printing a great photo. I though that if I switched to digital, what I did with the camera wouldn't matter any more. It wasn't until I hear and saw a lot of professional photographers talk about embracing digital and specific speak to how it changed the creative process for them, and gave them new opportunities to try different things, that I was able to be more open to the change. While it took me longer than I would have liked to be comfortable in the new world, I have certainly learned a lot of new and different things as a result of making the switch. And my luggage sure is lighter than when I carried all those canisters of film.

[#9]

Thank you very much to all that responded. Such amazing responses and it has given me more than enough to take back to this person.

[#10]

Building on some of Andrea's points, I think there is so much of the creative process in the work of using the AI. It's a mindset shift to see AI as a tool to enhance creativity vs a replacement for any of our own human ingenuity. We have the prompt AI tools to assist our creative thinking and the outputs are part of the creative process and development of the end results.

[#11]

This is just an important point that you bring up and it is important to address staff concerns.

I would emphasize the concept of copiloting -- that we are not fully "offloading" to the AI 100% of our job tasks -- that we let the AI do what it is good at and we retain the tasks that we are good at. Everyone has different strengths -- and part of the job they do well and provide satisfaction. Those are tasks that we would want to retain. But there are parts of everyone's job, even creative jobs, that we could offload to the AI and that would free up us to do more of the stuff that gives satisfaction.

The hard part is there isn't a universal manual or role book on this. We have to explore it ourselves. We have to map out what the AI can do and what we can do. If we do this, we get a view of our job role that we have never had before. It lessens the fear and it helps us focus on where these tools are useful and where they become more useful, valuable to your nonprofit’s mission.

I have written four books and do a lot of writing. When I initially encountered generative AI, I didn't want the AI to do any of it. However, I thought a lot about my own creative process for writing and what parts of the process contributed to my satisfaction and joy - and what didn't. I discovered a few places in my creative/writing process where the AI was beneficial as a copilot.

[#12]

I love all of this!

I 100% agree with all of these comments - but I have one quick addition.

@mrb999 - you mentioned this person is at the beginning of their career. I think in order to get the most out of Gen AI as a collaborator, I feel like you need to learn your own creative process first. Understand where your strengths are (not just what you're 'good' at, but what are the parts of the process that excite you and give you energy) and the place where you need more support. That's going to be different for everyone. Understanding yourself and your own process will better equip you for that exploration that Beth is talking about.

[#13]

@amygoddard: thank you for this. This was a message in one of the breakouts (and probably at the plenary one day as well) that really resonated with me. Understanding how you work and the checkpoints along the way of any process will help you use Gen AI more effectively.

[#14]

@mrb999 Thanks for sharing your situation - been hearing from other nonprofit leaders similar types of concerns or fears from staff.  It inspired me to reflect on the very early stages of adoption for nonprofit organizations and write this up: https://bethkanter.org/people-first-ai/

@amygoddard very astute observation and 100% agree.  Ask the question of what part of the process brings the most joy and or most pain - is a great place to start.