The 100 Years Club Installment #143: Who is Bess?

Simply put, Bess is my AI “replicant.”

She’s me. Yet not me. (AI gave her blue eyes.)

I felt a little like Dr. Frankenstein (without a medical degree) creating her. 

She’s named after my Nancy Drew’s sidekick (who helped her solve complex mysteries) and my beloved paternal grandmother.

I view AI as simply the next step in a technology evolution that I’ve been part of since my youth (because this month’s content theme is “Back to School,” I’m thinking about how various automations have made our lives easier.

• A slide rule and a calculator (and then Excel) helped me solve problems faster.
• Graduating from a manual typewriter and a self-correcting typewriter, and, ultimately, a smartphone has transformed writing speed and accuracy, especially now that we have Grammarly.
• Before Google, I had to schlep to a library to find sources.
• Constant Contact and Canva have become staples of my marketing business, following a rapid rise in the digital marketing era. I had limited artistic talent, and now I have a range of tools I can use to extract and visualize what’s in my (human) brain.

So yeah, AI is controversial and a bit scary, but if you just dive in and explore it, you may be pleasantly surprised!

But always ask yourself these five questions:

1. Is this making my work better?
2. Is this saving me time?
3. Is it accurate? You must ALWAYS check AI output and validate it.
4. Is it dehumanizing what should probably be a real-life creation or interaction?
5. Most importantly, am I disclosing that I used AI in my work?

Most of what I create is still coming directly from my head and my keyboard, but I’m using AI in virtually every aspect of my work and life to find things and information more quickly, streamline my work, and prompt ideas. However, I am still the “robot overlord” (or is it “overlady”)?

And, I can always cancel Bess if she gets too weird or useless.

P.S. Do you need a “Bess” for yourself? Please reach out, and I can help you give birth to one (not literally…that’s still a human function)!