April 14, 2023

What are the pros and cons of A.I. as it applies to general everyday life?

Jeff Hurley, iHeartMedia: As with any technology, it can be a great tool if applied in the correct ways. One of the biggest concerns is a lack of transparency and accountability. Unless you understand HOW the decisions are being mad, you can’t fully understand the results. It will be a game-changing tool for almost every aspect of life. But human emotions can’t be duplicated, and cheaply replicating those responses violates the trust of our audience.

Adam Rivers, WKCI: Maybe I should’ve just been born in 1950, but I don’t see any pros to AI. It makes us lazier as a society, its utilization costs jobs in all industries (have you gone to a fast food restaurant with only kiosks?) and I don’t believe it’s good for the world as a whole. I would rather invest the money that companies are putting into AI into humans that can be trained better and make better decisions and be more productive as a whole.

Dom Theodore, Radio Animal Media Strategies: There are many ways to use AI, for example, imagine “dynamic imaging“ so your recorded imaging is always fresh sounding. But attempting to replace true personalities with it is a fool’s errand.

Toby Knapp, WASH: There’s not a right way to answer this question. There are pros and cons on all sides. Like any new tech, AI can make our lives easier, content creation better, it can even make the tedious less cumbersome. However, it can also be used for bad – replacing true live companionship. Giving people remotely power to “use” the “talent” AI voice to create endorsements or live reads or even show content they never said, agreed to say, would never say. The nefarious is also a concern: Emerging UI can be used to have a ‘talent’ say something obscene. Create an image of a talent at a place they’ve never been doing something they’d never do. My bottom line is this: Proceed with caution, bravely into that new world because the technology is out of Pandora’s Box now. It’s here. It’s not going away for audio or video/movie/tv/digital distribution. What we as creators, talent, programmers, the current audio industry – including broadcast radio and podcast – need to do is work proactively with SAG-AFTRA to build the playground, craft rules for the program and govern the playground so all involved can get paid, make bank, protect brand and likeness and chart the way forward into the future which isn’t coming… it’s here.

Mike O’Donnell, WKRZ: The pro is it creates a convenience that lets us do things more quickly. However, the cons are that it’s another step toward less human interaction and living more in a virtual world rather than a real world.

Jon Zellner, iHeartMedia: Pros: saves time, error-free processing, 24/7 availability, faster decision making, eliminates duplicative work, easy accessibility. Cons: lacks creativity, dangerous privacy risks, biased and discriminatory algorithms, leads to higher unemployment, can cause widespread misinformation, high costs of creation, domination by big tech companies, non-established/unclear legal regulation.

Matt Johnson, WPLW: It all remains to be seen. We need to really wait and see and evaluate all the applications.

Brian Mack, iHeartMedia: Pro, it gives us time back to focus on our purpose. Con, it makes it easy to communicate less as humans with one another.

Jonathan Shuford, WRVW: It can automate a lot of tasks that can make us more efficient, like processes that can take a lot of time with not a lot of ROI built in. The downside is it can get out of control and corporations when corporations in general opt for the cost-cutting benefits at every turn. Corps are starting to automate things that probably don’t need automating.

Guy Zapoleon, Zapoleon Consulting: It’s a tremendous time saver if you use it as an “assistant” in several ways. I’m using ChatGPT to help me write my music cycles book (and it argues with me!) Cons are debatable. My heart always breaks when people are replaced by automation in industries in decline. You’ll always see A.I. replace humans in those industries for menial tasks. What I’d hate to see is phasing humans out of jobs that require intuition and instinct. Just like using algorithms to generate user friendly playlists at streaming platforms, we still see the most successful channels being curated at Spotify, and you see lots of curations going on at SiriusXM.

R Dub!, Z90/Magic 92.5: For me I’m concerned soon no one will know what is real and what is fake – video, audio, etc. I fear it will spread a non-stop new version of “doubt” from consumers.

Lee Abrams, mediavisions: It’s the beginning of A.I. and advanced automation penetrating all aspects of our lives. Another component in the dramatic evolution in society happening now. It’ll create efficiencies in some areas, dehumanize things that are best human in others, and open the doors to yet another form of trickery and scams.

Drew Heyman, WHYI: I’m not really affected yet. I see it coming and it makes for some fun radio bits. As far as being a local jock, I think if you’re creative, you should be fine. But overall, it’s a wait and see on its real impact.

Rick Vaughn, KENZ: I would like for some A.I. to pick perfect stocks for me and trade them at the right time (buy low, sell high!) The downside is the machines taking over. We don’t need any terminator scenarios.

Brian Check, iHeartMedia: I think it’ll make us all more productive by handling some of our mundane, time-consuming tasks personally and professionally. That will give us more time to be creative and do the “human” things that A.I. can’t, like developing relationships or brainstorming new “out of the box” ideas. One of the biggest cons is lack of privacy. This week’s story about the Tesla in-car cameras is a good example.

Buster Satterfield, WIOQ: When used the right way it can be beneficial. It can eliminate some jobs. But use it in a creative way in your job. Personally, it’s taken some of the monotony out of my work.

Valentine, WBHT: Like any tech, I think we can use it to help us be more efficient with tasks. However, with anything in life, too much of a good thing can be bad. In this case “too much” of a good thing could leave us all looking for a new gig.

Next Week’s Question Of The Week:
What methods do you rely on in dealing with a constantly changing and evolving industry?
e-Mail your responses to: jodorisio@deanemediasolutions.com or bburke@deanemediasolutions.com