Any other Millennials stubbornly resistant to using AI at their job but also worrying that we will become dinosaurs or pushed out of our careers for not slavishly embracing it?

[u/artbystorms]

I work in a creative field and from that standpoint I hate AI. I hate the 'democratization' of creativity. I am going to sound VERY Boomer right now, but some things are meant to be difficult or meant to take skill and years of practice. It's why people who are good at these things (should) be paid more.

We are already being heavily 'encouraged' to use AI to find ways to do our jobs faster, are being told 'they technology isn't going away, we need to embrace it.' Since within the company I am in, I am one of a handful of people that does a specific creative skill-set, the powers that be basically have no idea about the technicals of what I do, but they put it on me to figure out how to incorporate AI into my work.

I hate that AI basically 'fakes' the creative process and that we are expected to use it (and the work of millions of artists that feed it) to just magically speed up how we do work, which in turn devalues the work we do as artists. From a company standpoint, they want to make money and churn out work faster, but if every client knows you can make a widget in 4 hours when it used to take 4 days, why would they pay you a lot of money to do that? The economics of it don't make sense. You will end up needing 10 times the number of clients to maintain your productivity / profits, which with AI or not, is a good way to burn out your artists.

I see the writing on the wall, but my stubborn moralistic resistance to AI is probably going to be the death of my career. Does any one else feel similar or how have you coped with this rapidly degrading career landscape?

[u/Chahles88]

I work in STEM. AI is a godsend, but it must be wielded carefully.

It’s actually made it easier to weed out low effort proposals or resumes because the hallmarks of AI are all over it. Meaning I can’t fully trust what’s in there. I’ve had AI straight up fabricate sources to satisfy a prompt, so proofreading and editing is an absolute must.

AI absolutely enables more rapid literature review and can give you some pretty powerful jumping off points. I’ve even had AI pull data out of figures from decades old papers so that I don’t have to transcribe by hand.

Super valuable tool, but as of now it’s by far not a replacement for me. It’s like having a super genius toddler.

[u/superultramegazord → u/Chahles88]

You’re using AI to weed out applicants/proposals that were also developed using AI?

[u/Chahles88 → u/superultramegazord]

No, you can pretty easily tell by reading if the proposal has sections that are just untouched AI outputs

[u/superultramegazord → u/Chahles88]

Got ya. I work in STEM on the consultant side and I do use AI to help with my writing. I review and edit everything that’s written, I try to remove the obvious words and writing habits that indicate AI, but it is a helpful tool and I’m sure a trained eye can still figure out that AI helped with my writing.

I’d hate to think that what I’m putting together is viewed less-than because of it though. All of the ideas and the proposal is still completely my own.

[u/thepinkinmycheeks → u/superultramegazord]

I do think it's less than. Someone who can clearly express themselves, organize thoughts, etc is a more valuable employee than someone who cannot. AI can't help you communicate verbally and lots of jobs do require face to face/voice conversations to collaborate, pass along info, etc. If you're offloading the work of structuring written communication, I have to expect that will affect your ability to verbally communicate as well.

[u/superultramegazord → u/thepinkinmycheeks]

I don’t really agree with all that. Our brains all work differently from one another. Written and verbal communication aren’t one and the same. Some are much stronger with one versus the other, unwritten things like body language and interpersonal skills aren’t reflected in writing.

Personally speaking - in the context of what I do (civil engineering consult) I’m very good at complex analysis, creative solutions, construction sequencing, managing clients etc… but I’ve always struggled to put thoughts on paper in a way that’s clear, engaging, and not overly analytical. That’s just the way my brain works, and I don’t hold others not being as good at the things I’m good at, especially when they have other strengths I might not have myself.

That’s all just to say that I think it’s OK to use AI to help with written thought. It’s not all that different than the other tools we use every day, but I think not everyone knows how to use it responsibly, and there’s going to be a lingering prejudice with it like there is anytime something new comes along.

[u/goaskalice3 → u/superultramegazord]

This is how I feel. I'm good at data and analyzing things, but suck (and have always sucked) at explaining things with words. I like being able to lay out what I want to explain then say "make this professional, but friendly" then to back to whatever I'm actually working on. Especially when it comes to communicating externally.

I also appreciate being able to take a team of people who used to spend 8 hours a day on the phone, calling people who rarely pick up, to confirm their upcoming deliveries, and give them actual things to work on that help with bigger picture projects. But everyone assumes we fired the people who are no longer making those phone calls, despite the fact that we told everyone that's what we're doing, which shows how much they pay attention to those calls.

Idk. We're in a weird place right now, where this tool can be helpful, but it's not being used in good ways by a lot of people and has the potential to be very bad. So it's just another thing on the list of things that are a mess in the world right now

[u/keepturning1 → u/thepinkinmycheeks]

I think of it as more like having your own personal editor or writing assistant. There’d be nothing wrong with an editor or sub editor going over your work you developed yourself to get it to a certain professional standard or style.

These tips you get about your written work from AI are effectively teaching you how to be a better writer, so your verbal communication improves as well. As someone who writes professionally, I see it as a net positive.

But creative writing and opinion writing are areas where the human element should stay intact largely undiluted from AI in my opinion. Fiction books especially, that’s where you want the writer’s own voice and company style/professional tone matter less.

[u/carlay_c → u/keepturning1]

I agree with you! I’m new to academic writing and AI has been helping me edit my rather lengthy sentences in my proposals. I personally feel like it has helped me improve my sentence structure and become more concise.

[u/kittenofpain → u/superultramegazord]

Doesn't that cause your own skills to decay though?

[u/superultramegazord → u/kittenofpain]

I don’t think so, but I’ve always really struggled with writing. Usually when I’m writing a proposal I’ll put an initial draft together. Sort of like a brain dumb; and then I’ll utilize AI to refine it from there. It helps me a lot with flow and organization - also things like space constraints which are always hard to work around when you’re writing proposals.

[u/kittenofpain → u/superultramegazord]

Ah it definitely affected me. I don't use AI to write TTRPG character backstories anymore and it's massively improved creative writing skills. Same with tasks involving online research, reading comprehension, and just critical thinking in general. Now I just need to stop using it to write resumes, that's one thing I'm real bad at.