Private Partying, Rage-Baiting & AI tricks
5 in 5 - Brave & Heart HeartBeat #223 ❤️
This week we’re talking nightclub phone etiquette, AI vs. copywriters and why rage-baiting may be the most effective marketing trick in the box.
Plus, how AI could either kill you, or help you get ahead at work. Roll the dice!
Let’s get into it.
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#1 - Partying With Privacy
We’ve heard about smartphone bans in school, but the latest place to bring in rules against smart phones are clubs who want you to get rid so you can party like it’s 1999.
A handful of venues in the UK, including one recently opened in Manchester, have started enforcing the rule that your smartphone camera must be covered with a sticker.
In cities like Berlin, famous for its nightclubs, this is apparently already the norm.
Apparently the reason behind it is that they want the music and the experience to be front and centre, but some people aren’t happy with what they see as being treated like kids, not being trusted to enjoy their nightlife in the best way.
On the other hand, it could be a way to protect the experience for those who do want to enjoy it without smartphones getting in the way.
And if they’re doing it in Berlin, it must be right. Right?
#2 - AI vs. Copywriters
It would be an understatement to say that AI has shaken up the copywriting world, but the dangers to the job aren’t just being replaced by AI, but also being accused of using it.
The story of one freelance writer who made a living writing blogs and other content for small and medium companies on the platform WritersAccess shows how AI has been a double-edged sword for people who rely on writing to pay the bills.
Firstly, in 2023, her income plummeted as some clients switched to ChatGPT for their writing needs. Then as if that wasn’t enough, she received an email warning saying that she’d been flagged as using AI in her writing using a tool called Originality.
Despite never having used AI , she started running her work through AI detectors before submitting to the platform, along with pleading her innocence, but she still got kicked off the platform for “excessive use of AI”.
And voila, she’s out of a job.
The panic to avoid paying people for work that they’re getting AI to do in their place, and of course – there ARE people doing that – led to a host of startups rushing in with promise to detect AI in writing, with names like Copyleaks, GPTZero and the aforementioned Originality.AI.
While some of these tools advertise accuracy rates as high as 99.98%, a growing body of experts are arguing that they’re actually far less reliable.
So if AI doesn’t steal your job, AI detection technology could get you wrongly fired.
An Indian start-up did a really weird employer brand marketing move this last week by going viral on LinkedIn after pretending to send an employee survey asking employees about their stress levels, and then firing those who said they were stressed.
LinkedIn were up in arms about this, understandably, until they found out that it was actually a fake designed to “highlight the serious issue of workplace stress”. We’re wondering how, exactly, but okay, we’ll pretend we understand…
Some applauded them, while others were even more annoyed, criticising the company for “toying” with their emotions.
However, one comment on LinkedIn stood out to us, pointing out that you don’t need a marketing budget when you “have outrage as your social media manager”.
Amen, sister.
This is so true, that “rage-baiting” is literally a career on TikTok. Comments means traction which means money. Is someone more likely to comment if they love what you’re doing, or if they hate what you’re doing?
#4 - Chatbot AI Officially Dangerous Now
Chatbot AI, a site where users can create their own chatbots to talk to, will be rolling out their first lot of parental controls in March 25, which they claim will “infuse” all they do with safety.
Commentators have called it a “belated, reactive and unsatisfactory response” and a “sticking plaster” to the fundamental safety issues of the platform.
What are they, you might ask?
Well, Chatbot AI are currently facing two lawsuits in the US, one of which is over the suicide of a teenager who was talking to a character on the platform, and the other over a teenager who was encouraged by one of their chatbots to kill his parents when they reduced his screen time.
Yeah, sounds pretty dangerous.
The new safety measures will include notifying users after they’ve been talking to a bot, including warnings to make it clear they’re talking to a bot and not a real person, along with additional disclaimers to chatbots which claim to be psychologists or therapists to tell users NOT to rely on them for any professional advice.
It brings up the question of if people can’t use something safely, should they be using it at all?
#5 - How To Actually Use AI At Work
We’re hearing a lot about needing to de-demonise using AI in the workplace, but what if we don’t actually know how to use it?
Here are some concrete ways people have actually been using AI this year:
As a productivity sidekick. Apparently this means using AI to automate admin tasks that you did yourself before, like data input or scheduling, or even writing notes from meetings and turning those into actionable items or emails.
Processing information easier. Remember the famous NotebookLLM podcasts? Well a great use for them is to help you synthesise information easier, for example from a report or if you need to read research papers, NotebookLLM can make it into audio that you can listen to and potentially understand better.
Challenging creativity. Some people have used AI to create names for their products or even their businesses, by inputting all the data and letting AI come up with something. Others have mentioned using it for storyboards, and Klarna famously use it to come up with all their marketing materials. This one is a bit of a moral grey spot, as everyone is up in arms about the death of creativity thanks to AI, but hey, if you’re strapped on time and need results…
Fine tuning your written work. What do you think Grammarly is? It’s AI, people. One professional questioned said that they use AI for proofreading to catch typos and grammar so that they can focus on the key messaging.
Again, you wouldn’t feel bad about using spellcheck – your boss would actually be pretty mad if you didn’t.
Brave & Heart over and out.
Bonus
AI Good News
A woman in the UK says that the early lung cancer diagnosis she just received thanks to medical AI tool analyse.ai, which scans for areas of concern that doctors should prioritise, may have saved her life.
As knowledge workers we have a lot of fear around AI, but when we look outside of our bubble you can’t deny that it is doing some good.
To find out more on how you can retain your top talent, or how we can help you with digital solutions to your business and marketing challenges, check out our case studies.
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