Certified Human-Made

For weeks I’ve been disgusted by the recent AI developments, despite how I like how AI can improve much of our lives. Recently I cleared up my feelings about it.

What sickens me about recent GPT-like developments is how some company owners take shortcuts in marketing content generation. If I’m a customer, I’ll feel treated like cattle and stop being a customer immediately. What infuriates me is not the shortcut in marketing copywriting itself but the possibility and the incentive to take other shortcuts that will compromise product quality. Bro-marketers say people don’t care, but I’m no person then. I do care. The temptation is just too great to ignore, and I cannot rely on the mind-strength of others to resist it.

I intend that businesses disclose their usage of AI and GPT-like developments, segmented by groups or levels. This disclosure should be another footer link, like a Privacy Policy or an Affiliate Disclosure.

I propose the following levels as an initial idea:

• Level 0: This business is entirely human-based; none of our co-workers uses AI-based technologies to perform delivered work.
• Level 1: This business leverages AI-based technologies our co-workers use to perform delivered work. E.g., Software developers use something like GitHub Copilot, where some pieces of code are written by the AI and then reviewed and approved by the human. Marketing copywrites that generated some of the text you’re reading and then edited it for clarity or corrections.
• Level 2: This business consumes input from AI-based technologies and passes it onto Customers almost without supervision. E.g. Marketing agencies that have replaced copywriters with AI.
• Level 3: This business heavily relies on AI for functioning. E.g., Facebook, Instagram, and other social networks.

I don’t think this should be a regulatory body from governments because that’s likely to enforce market conditions such as “This industry is protected only for humans”, which may or may not have unforeseen consequences. Still, there I propose the existence of a 3rd-party non-governmental organization, like a certification body similar to Better Business Bureau, that inspects companies and provides a seal marking the certification level regarding AI usage.

Disclosure: I write every word of my blog and use a tool like Grammarly to improve it to a level where I’m comfortable not losing my voice as a blog writer.

This post is a reaction to It happened to me today: $80/hr writer replaced with ChatGPT.