Generative AI is everywhere now, and businesses are racing to embrace the opportunities it is creating. That said, this needs to be done with caution. Let’s go over some common errors to watch out for and avoid.
Issue: Uploading Proprietary and Sensitive Data
AI is great for analyzing data, but because of the way public AI models operate, uploading it becomes problematic.
This is because AI models train on the data users provide. By giving your data to the AI, you’re risking that the AI will retain it and use it to inform other people’s responses moving forward. Obviously, this means it is no longer confidential, something that regulatory bodies won’t be thrilled about. You’re risking fines and other ongoing problems if you choose to upload sensitive data to these AI tools.
As such, we strongly encourage you to lock down your customer lists, financial reports, product designs, and other confidential materials and not supply them to a public AI.
Issue: Making Decisions via Bad Data
By design, generative AI models predict what is—statistically speaking—the most plausible word to follow whatever it just generated. There is nothing to ensure the resulting sentence is in any way factual. AI can easily make up false information (a phenomenon known as hallucination) and present it as gospel truth. Let’s say you generate a financial disclosure or ask for clarification on some law or regulation… an AI hallucination could easily misinform you and land your business in hot water.
This makes it essential to rigorously review everything you produce with AI to catch these kinds of errors and mistruths. Otherwise, your business could get hit with the consequences.
Issue: Fully Automating Customer Communications
A lot of businesses are using AI to handle their customer service needs, which—if used in moderation—can be a highly effective way to sort through issues that do or don’t require human assistance to resolve. That said, many may be tempted to fully rely on AI to provide this support, which would be a mistake.
This is because human beings have empathy, which is essential for dealing with customers as you work through their particular challenge. AI doesn’t. It can be programmed to handle common inquiries, but if an issue falls outside the AI’s prepared expertise, it simply can’t deliver.
For this reason, AI should never be the only resource your customers have to get support. You need live human beings to take the reins when a problem becomes too complicated for the lateral “thinking” a machine is stuck in.
Find Out What AI Can Do to Support You!
If you’re interested in putting AI to work in acceptable ways, we can help. Learn more about what we can do for you by reaching out at (954) 575-3992.
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