I came to Cleveland, Ohio, for the 50th anniversary of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention. I expected the hallways to be buzzing with conversations about AI, and they were, but not in the way I\u2019d hoped. For the first two days, the phrase I heard most from my fellow journalists was \u201cwe must protect ourselves.\u201d In session after session, the consensus was that AI is a danger, a threat, an enemy coming to replace us.<\/p>\n
Then I had breakfast at Betts, the restaurant in my hotel, and a single conversation with my waiter gave me another perspective on the AI revolution.<\/p>\n
As he brought me the bill, I asked Kevin Knestrick, 49, if he used AI. Haunted by the fearful rhetoric from the convention, I expected him to either rebuff me or launch into an anti-AI tirade.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot really,\u201d he replied cautiously, then paused. \u201cActually,\u201d he continued, \u201cI used it for the first time when we changed the menu. I took a picture and uploaded it to ChatGPT and asked it to copy the text and prepare a message for a colleague. It saved me so much time.\u201d<\/p>\n
As he relaxed, he called over a younger colleague, Jamie Sargent, 31, and he introduced me a bit later to another younger colleague of his, Dawud Hamzah, 37. \u201cYou should talk to these guys,\u201d he said. \u201cThey use it a lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was right. It quickly became clear that for Hamzah and Sargent, ChatGPT is a part of their daily lives. They don\u2019t see it as a threat.<\/p>\n
The Power Users <\/p>\n
For Hamzah, a bartender at Betts and a youth motivational speaker who founded his own empowerment association, H.Y.P.E. (Helping You Produce Excellence), ChatGPT has effectively replaced Google.<\/p>\n
\u201cI use it to build solid, well-structured PowerPoint presentations for my speaking engagements with students,\u201d he told me. But its use extends far beyond his professional life. It\u2019s his trip planner, health advisor, and personal coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just used it for my lady\u2019s birthday,\u201d he said. \u201cI said, \u2018I want something relaxing that has vegan friendly foods.\u2019 It gave me a whole itinerary, a phenomenal itinerary.\u201d When back problems flared up, he turned to the chatbot for help. \u201cI asked it to give me specific home workouts and mobility exercises to relieve pressure from a degenerating disc in my back. And it did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Did it work? \u201cOh yeah!\u201d he responded.<\/p>\n
Sargent, a former special education teacher, has been using ChatGPT since it launched in late 2022. He used it to generate baseline lesson plans, saving him hours of work which he could then devote to tailoring the content to each of his students\u2019 individual needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saved about an hour\u2019s worth of time writing a lesson plan,\u201d he said. I asked him if it felt like cheating. \u201cNo, because I would have done the same thing it did. It just did it faster than I can.\u201d He dismisses the idea that teachers shouldn\u2019t use it. \u201cI\u2019d say, that\u2019s nonsense. We spend so many hours outside of the classroom working on our own stuff. If we can make it faster, the better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like Hamzah, Sargent is also an avid travel planner, using ChatGPT to map out complex international vacations. \u201cMy brother and I planned a trip to Italy from Milan to Florence to Naples, and it basically showed us the map of taking a train from here to here, gave us good restaurants to go to, and then it told us how much it was going to cost.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both men hold a pragmatic view of AI\u2019s future. They believe jobs will be lost, but that it\u2019s on individuals to adapt. \u201cIf you don\u2019t learn, develop, and adjust, you\u2019ll fail, because it\u2019s not going to stop,\u201d Hamzah insisted. Sargent agreed, adding that the key is to focus on what makes you human. \u201cI\u2019m part of the experience, whereas AI is not part of that experience. Find a way to differentiate yourself from AI and make yourself valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cautious Converts <\/p>\n
Kevin, who first introduced me to the group, represents a different demographic\u2019s journey into AI. His use was born of pure necessity. \u201cI was in a time crunch to get this menu to the printer,\u201d he recalled. The AI solved his problem in seconds.<\/p>\n
That single, surprisingly effective interaction transformed him from a non-user into a curious convert. \u201cNow I\u2019m much more open to any problem I have. I\u2019m just going to ask it now,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n
His regret over missing out on the Bitcoin boom has also made him wonder if AI could be a tool to help \u201cthe little guy\u201d get an edge in investing. \u201cI guess I\u2019m from the generation where all the Wall Street fat cats make money, while us little people just get crushed,\u201d he said. \u201cHow do we not be the little guy anymore?\u201d<\/p>\n
Their manager, Curtis Helser, 56, was also introduced to ChatGPT by his wife about a year ago. He uses it to refine important work emails, making them shorter and more professional. He isn\u2019t afraid of it, seeing it as a tool that can be used for good or ill, just like a car. And he\u2019s not worried about his job. \u201cYou have to be in the building,\u201d he said with a laugh. \u201cKissing babies, shaking hands, that kind of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was stunned. At the restaurant, AI wasn\u2019t a terrifying enemy; it was a useful, if imperfect, assistant. The younger employees had fully embraced it, while the older generation was more cautious but still open, integrating it into their lives at their own pace. They see the current panic as a movie they\u2019ve seen before, recalling the fears that accompanied the rise of the personal computer.<\/p>\n
The contrast with my colleagues at the journalism convention was stark. Perhaps those of us whose jobs are built on creating and controlling information see AI as an existential threat, while those in the service of people see it as just another tool to get the job done. The real AI revolution, I realized, wasn\u2019t happening in the headlines or the panicked convention halls. It was happening quietly, in conversations like this, one practical problem at a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I came to Cleveland, Ohio, for the 50th anniversary of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,3070,5004,180,5044,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-58185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-chatbots","11":"tag-chatgpt","12":"tag-jobs","13":"tag-openai","14":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}