Lately I have been doing a lot of research on AI and ChatGPT: their current uses and needs for the small business owner. I have seen advertisements in all social media channels saying “you need this program or that program to automate your system?” I have honestly been curious. I feel that most of my job comes from my own experience and my own creations but again, I was curious. I started digging into these programs and there was the immediate stop gap.
Every single one of them came with a subscription cost. One even said, “If you aren’t willing to invest $20K, then you aren’t the client we are looking for. Good luck on your search.” Wow!! A small business owner is a lot of things, but we aren’t ones to drop $20K easily. We are ones that vet our sources and look at return on investments with every single thing we purchase. A $20k purchase for any one thing is a huge investment as it would take up most of our budget. Small business owners are not big spenders no matter what your pitch is. We aren’t ones that will jump into a new venture without looking at every different aspect of how it would benefit our companies.
I have talked to many people over the last couple months about the benefits and downfalls of ChatGPT and AI in our world. As a small business owner that brings a passion to their craft, and thus through their business, I want to protect my intellectual property. I want to protect our unique creations. I want to champion our original content. If we feed ChatGPT with the intellectual property that is in our brains, aren’t we teaching ChatGPT to replace us? I see many advertisements lately on “automate your cash flow and profit and loss analysis”. That’s what I do for a living. I look at things from different angles, and how it affects different departments, something ChatGPT doesn’t do. If I feed this system to become smarter, isn’t that creating a system that will do what I do with my individual analytical approach, therefore, creating a job market where I am competing for the same job with a ChatGPT that has my own knowledge?
I feel we are on the verge of an ethical dilemma with technology and original thought creators. How far is too far? How much is too much? How much knowledge does ChatGPT have before the small business owner is no longer useful? To Be Continued….
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