AI was hidden within layers of back-end infrastructure for streamlining logistics or automating content moderation. Now, applications like ChatGPT and the image-generator mid-journey have placed the technology directly into the hands of individuals and small businesses who are using the tools to see if they can automate laborious tasks or speed up creative processes. Some are driven by the thrill of being able to do things not previously possible; others by an existential push to master the nascent technology 'so' they don’t fall behind.
The groundswell of experimentation has put larger corporations on notice that such tools could soon shake up their industries. From Netflix Inc. to oil-and-gas producer Devon Energy Corp., some companies have started taking tentative steps with generative AI.
AI experts caution, however, that such tools should only be used to support people who are already experts in their domain. Generative AI has been shown to spew disturbing content and misinformation, while other concerns have surfaced over intellectual property theft and privacy.
“The purpose that it is serving is not to inform you about things you don’t know. It’s really a tool for you to be able to do what you do better,” said Margaret Mitchell, chief ethics scientist at AI research startup Hugging Face.
Tel mo Gomes, the co-founder and IT director of Live Sense, which is based in Melbourne, Australia, said ChatGPT saves him significant time on research. After his company was hired to develop a system that can detect vaping in public places, he spent hours calling people and googling to determine which sensors worked best. Information was limited; other companies selling vaping detection solutions didn’t disclose what they were using.
Then he typed the question into ChatGPT. Within a few seconds, it spat back several answers, including ones that exactly mirrored the solutions he’d settled on from his research. It also added a note of caution to consider the ethics of monitoring people’s behaviors.
“It completely blew my mind,” Mr. Gomes said. “We’re a small company. It will let us do more with less.”
Nikki Hedge, a designer at Kimberly Allison Tong & Goo, a global architecture firm that specializes in luxury hotels, said she concluded generative AI would transform her profession when a client sent her team early concept sketches of the building they wanted, which they had created with Mid-journey.
Mid-journey, which launched in July, takes a range of prompts from text to three-dimensional forms and gives users a high degree of control to edit its generated images.
The sketches that the client provided are traditionally the architect’s job, but Ms. Hedge embraced the process. She fed the client’s images back into Mid-journey and asked the program to create several new variations with different structures while keeping a similar design.
“The role of the architect really, really changes,” she said. “Within the industry, we really have to rethink what we’re doing as a service.”
Ms. Hedge now regularly uses Mid-journey and dedicates the first half-day of each project to what she calls “the failure stage.” Once, she fed Mid-journey an image of a rock and asked it to “make the rock gold.” It generated a glittering gold torso of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
The rapid shift is prompting the firm to formalize policies around generative AI, including to consider the ethics and legal ramifications, according to Sean Harry, the company’s managing principal of design technology, who is leading the effort.
You must be logged in to post a comment.