From marketing to design, brands adopt AI tools despite risk

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Category: Technology/Innovations

Listening

Unlocking Word Meanings

Read the following words/expressions found in today’s article.

  1. generative / ˈdʒɛn ər ə tɪv / (adj.) – able to produce or create
    Example:

    Generative AI can produce images or long essays from simple words or sentences.


  2. synthetic / sɪnˈθɛt ɪk / (adj.) – not natural
    Example:

    This bag is cheap because it’s made of synthetic leather.


  3. play around / pleɪ əˈraʊnd / (idiom) – to try different ways to do something to learn which one works best
    Example:

    The new software has a lot of functions. Play around with it first so you can easily use it later.


  4. tinker / ˈtɪŋ kər / (v.) – to try to fix or improve something by making small changes
    Example:

    My brother often tinkers with his car.


  5. in the first place / ɪn ðə fɜrst pleɪs / (idiom) – used to say that something is true or should have happened from the beginning
    Example:

    Never mind that he broke my laptop. He shouldn’t have used it in the first place!


Article

Read the text below.

Even if you haven’t tried artificial intelligence tools that can write essays and poems or conjure new images on command, chances are the companies that make your household products are already starting to do so.


Mattel has put the AI image generator DALL-E to work by having it come up with ideas for new Hot Wheels toy cars. Used vehicle seller CarMax is summarizing thousands of customer reviews with the same “generative” AI technology that powers the popular chatbot ChatGPT.


Meanwhile, Snapchat is bringing a chatbot to its messaging service. And the grocery delivery company Instacart is integrating ChatGPT to answer customers’ food questions.


Coca-Cola plans to use generative AI to help create new marketing content. And while the company hasn’t detailed exactly how it plans to deploy the technology, the move reflects the growing pressure on businesses to harness tools that many of their employees and consumers are already trying on their own.


“We must embrace the risks,” said Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey in a recent video announcing a partnership with startup OpenAI — maker of both DALL-E and ChatGPT — through an alliance led by the consulting firm Bain. “We need to embrace those risks intelligently, experiment, build on those experiments, drive scale, but not taking those risks is a hopeless point of view to start from.”


Indeed, some AI experts warn that businesses should carefully consider potential harms to customers, society and their own reputations before rushing to embrace ChatGPT and similar products in the workplace.


“I want people to think deeply before deploying this technology,” said Claire Leibowicz of The Partnership on AI, a nonprofit group founded and sponsored by the major tech providers that recently released a set of recommendations for companies producing AI-generated synthetic imagery, audio and other media. “They should play around and tinker, but we should also think, what purpose are these tools serving in the first place?”


This article was provided by The Associated Press.


Viewpoint Discussion

Enjoy a discussion with your tutor.

Discussion A

  • What do you think are the pros and cons of businesses using an image generator like DALL-E and a content generator like ChatGPT (ex. pro: more efficient operations, con: lack of human touch)? Discuss.
  • Do you think more companies will soon use generative AIs in their operations despite the risks? Why or why not? Discuss.

Discussion B

  • Generative AI tools can help people speed up processes and come up with ideas. In what situations is using such tools no longer good (ex. using them to cheat)? Discuss.
  • Do you think generative AIs can replace humans in the future? Why or why not? Discuss.