'Those who master AI will replace those who don't'

At exchange4media’s PR and Corp Comm 30 under 30 Summit and Awards, industry experts shared their two cents on how the debate between human intelligence versus ChatGPT will impact the communication and media industry. The panel was moderated by Delhi University Professor, Garima Sharma Nijhawan. 

Munavar Attari, Managing Director, FleishmanHillard India kickstarted the discussion by highlighting that the debate between human intelligence versus artificial intelligence is sorted as far as his mind is concerned. “Very soon AI, rather it already has, taken over human intelligence and not only overtaken us by a bit but is on the path to make us look quite foolish and useless. If you hear the experts in the field this is what they say and they have been saying for over a decade. “

"There have been discussions that suggest humans need to take a pause on making developments in this space. And there aren't going to be any incremental changes but non-linear changes in ChatGPT 4 as compared to ChatGPT 3. Therefore, if one uses any of the technologies, one will realise that it is far more serious than the human could have ever imagined," added Attari. 

Sunita Patnaik, Director- Corporate Affairs, MARS, had a strikingly opposite viewpoint on the same. She said, “AI will definitely enhance your research skills, it will collect the dots for you. But ultimately, it will be human intelligence that will connect the dots. Having said that, we have to collaborate at some point and we already are moving in synergy. It's never going to be who’s better than who but it will be necessary to move in sync. 

A former IBM executive also said 10 percent of jobs might go because of AI but 100 percent of jobs will change and that change will start with human professionals.

The Head - Enterprise Communications and PR of Dell Technologies, Shobha Vasudevan shared that like all technologies, AI is an enabler. “At the end of the day, we have to remember it was created because somebody decided to code for it."

She further added to Patnaik’s point and said, “Now, where it differs from human beings is it lacks the emotional ability to connect the dots. We as humans are still able to do critical thinking and logical inferences. AI’s ability on the other hand is limited to what it has been given in its training data.” 

Indu Sharma, Senior GM - Communications, Schneider Electric underlined that the debate should not be about whether AI will be taking over or not, it should be about how communication teams can leverage its potential. There is so much more that the communications teams do and content is just one of the smallest pieces. 

“AI has the capability of streamlining most of the work that we do. We as communicators should be excited about the possibilities that AI brings to the table,” she further said.

But when it comes to storytelling, a communicator can't afford to kill their emotional side completely and be dependent on AI. 

Adding to this, the Dell executive shared that storytelling has two parts- the story and how it is told. In terms of the creative part of the story, an AI tool like ChatGPT can help in curating the right messaging if it is given the right cues. It can even mimic emotional intelligence to a certain extent. But,  the range of emotions goes through a day, no AI can ever mimic the range of human emotions.

Hence, here comes the part of human intelligence to be able to tell the story in a way that touches every consumer or target audience. That is not possible by AI.

“It's all about collaboration and being complementary to each other. Any technology for that matter, if we use it in the right way, we learn, we master and then we can derive advantage from it,” added Nijhawan.

Coming towards the end, Attari said, “AI won't but people who master AI will replace people who don’t master AI.”

Patnaik added, “We do need to create a sense of urgency without really creating a sense of anxiety when it comes to adoption of AI. Additionally as much as upscaling is important, self-regulation is important too.”