The Meeting of Hollywood and Reality. AI: Good or Evil?

 

It is October and a perfect time to discuss the scary and the spooky. This is how I view the thought of Artificial Intelligence.

There have been numerous movies and books on the subject, like The Terminator by James Cameron (1984) in which an army of AI has been created with one computer to rule them all and taking over the world with but a few brave humans fighting this hostile takeover. There are numerous movies involving this type of conquest. The Minority Report directed by Stephen Spielberg (2002) uses AI to predict what someone might do in the future, rather than remembering that choices are fluid. People who might do something illegal are arrested before they can commit the crime which argues if they have not committed the crime, why the arrest? The future is not written in stone. There was a time when this type of story lived within the realm of science fiction. Here we are. We are living in the world of sci-fi.

AI is not always the bad guy. Take the Terminator- he comes around in the end. Disney’s Wall-E, the loveable robot who proves that robots can love and hope and save humanity. With that image in mind- do we need to worry? Which image is the “correct” one?

 AI is being used more and more in our daily lives. Siri (or Alexia) helps you make a phone call in your car or helps with tasks around the house. AI is being used to answer basic questions on a company’s website reducing wait times, and running analytics to further improve your customer experiences.  

There has been recent concern from programmers that AI could outsmart people perhaps making “2001 A Space Odyssey” more likely. 

World powers are scrambling together to come up with regulations on a global scale working to utilize and encourage innovation and technology while minimizing risk and misuse.

It is important to remember that, at least initially, AI is created by programmers and coders which can impede access to resources or cause faulty results due to biases within the algorithm codes.

Having our privacy infringed upon, or loosing out on jobs because of a faulty algorithm is very concerning yet . . . AI is ingrained within our culture and that is before we start talking about robots. Besides gaming (think chess, and even some of the interactive games) farmers are using AI for self-driving tractors, pest control, and irrigation systems allowing for smart decision making instead of using guess work. AI is being used in our healthcare systems for disease detection, diagnostics, and operations. In fact, a robot helped rebuild my husband’s knee recently making cleaner and less stressful bone cuts than the surgeons could do alone.  These are just a few of the ways that AI is being used for our benefit.

 Is there risk? Are there concerns? Absolutely – but there is always risk in innovations and without taking the chance, there is stagnation and extinction.

Interested in knowing more? Check out the hotel whose robotic AI staff attends to the customers needs 

Here Thar Be Audience

Where is the Audience? 

Is your audience hiding? They may not be, but it is important that you know who you are writing for (Handley & Chapman, 2012). In this day and age literally, everyone is a publisher of content (Handley & Chapman, 2012). Stay relevant and get others to read your material by knowing what your audience is interested in. Use social media, not as a platform to write or post on, but as a tool to listen. What are your readers talking about? What are they posting about and commenting on? That is what your audience wants to know more about.  

Skills Sets for Great Communicators

Commit to be a life-long learner. Read everything. Newspapers, posts, books, magazines, memes- read it all. Read about topics that interest you. Read about topics that do not interest you, or that you know nothing about. Know what is happening in the world, and your local area. Learn about the newest trends and be willing to explore those trends. If there is a new social media app, be brave enough to try it out.  

Write a little bit every day. It does not need to be much, but committing to everyday keeps your hand in, and makes the process of writing easier when you have to do it as your brain muscles have been in training for that very thing. Create stories. It is more likely that your audience will appreciate a good story and will have better recall later. Like anything else, the more practice you get in, the better you become, increasing your credibility and expertise.

Analyzing the Analytics

Learn to love analytics. This information can show you how much your readers loved your article, and how many times it was shared with others. It may also allow you to change how you do things because no one read that article about robots. It is information that can tell you when the best time to post is. This means you could pre-write a story and set it up to go out at the optimal time when you readers are waiting for that great story.

Listening is important, but so is responding. If your audience has taken the time to comment on something you have written, take the time to respond. Admittedly that can be a great many platforms to have to check all at once. Never fear! There are apps for that! Some are free, some are not, but they can all be set up for you to gather the information you need into a “one stop shop” allowing you to manage multiple platforms from just one site.

These tricks will make navigating the waters of authorship, editor, and publisher smoother for your sailing.

 

Want to know more? 

 

 

Start Your Engines

 

You have created a profile. You have got great content, both written and curated. It is not just about content though; you also need to get the search engines to work for you bringing your content to the forefront when people search for certain words. This is called search engine optimization or SEO.

The Pit Stop

When you go to your google search bar and enter in words to help you learn about a topic, those words are known as keywords and should be found throughout an article. These words are going to be about you, your brand, and your content. Pick three or four words that describe brand you (Handley & Chapman, 2012). Pick the best word of those three or four and use that in your title. There is a balance here. Do not go overboard and have every other word be hot air balloons (if that is what you are writing about), but hot air balloons and balloons can be used as they would come naturally in your writing. Adding those words into your headlines will help search engines, like google, spot your work.

(LocalIq n.d.)

 

 Navigation

Make sure your site makes sense. It is easy to navigate and flows well. Fewer and fewer people sit in front of their computes anymore, so your content has to look good there, but it must also be easy to navigate through on a mobile device which is how more and more people are getting content.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                   (Green Web Media, n.d.)

Behind the Curtain

Curious to see what the “behind the scenes" of that webpage looks like? Click CTRL+U and you will get a glimpse behind the curtain and what SEO looks like.

It takes a bit of practice to read the information, but it is worth looking at. It will give you an idea of how others are making SEO work for them (Handley & Chapman, 2012). This is the information that search engines like Google, look at when pulling up answers to search queries.    

           

Conclusion                                            

Taking the time to ensure your site is user friendly on all devices, selecting and using key words, and creating great content are excellent starts to getting those search engines working for you.

Want to know more? Check out these great references.