Yes, ChatBots Are Coming for Your Knowledge Job: Lot Less Vulnerable Is Mysticism

"Pull some cards on this. Will Artificial Intelligence close down my public relations agency?"

That's what a client for a Tarot reading asked me a few days after Open AI released ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. He tried it out. Of course, like the rest of us, he was amazed by the quality that had been generated. 

THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE

The first card which came up was a major one in the arcana - The Wheel of Fortune. Yes, change was coming. The ethos of the Tarot is optimistic. So, the change could be interpreted as positive, if this professional was willing to experiment with other ways to earn a very good living. Here is my article published in O'Dwyer'rs Public Relations on career change.

Today in The Atlantic Annie Lowrey nails it:

"ChatGPT is coming for my job and yours, according to ChatGPT itself."

KNOWLEDGE WORK

Yes, most of the knowledge work we had been hammered to train for (The Chase After Undergraduate And Advanced Degrees) could be disappeared. Also today is the interpretation of the Alphabet massive layoff of 12,000 as related to AI.  

Yet, predictably those most vulnerable are busy bees, including on LinkedIn, patiently telling us why AI won't come for their work. For instance, in human content-creation (90% of which could be wiped out by 2025) those with most invested in the industry contend AI lacks the human touch. They ignore that the technology has such reach because it so well simulates human interaction. Often they position and package that illusion as "soul." 

Among the industries wiped up could be higher education, including even in the Ivies. Why spend that time, money, and hope in what can't be applied to work per se? At least, not for long. Until the self-driving technology is perfected, a smarter investment could be in becoming licensed as a long-distance driver. 

A DIFFERENT TYPE OF KNOWING

One of my clients did just that. His middle manager's job in Pharma had blown up. He decided to not go for another kind of white-collar slot. Too much politics.

The cost of that training ranges from $1,000 and $7,000 and you are road-ready in a month or more. 

Yes, I had been in content-creation. I should have picked up sooner about the pickle I was in when someone noted, "Writers are a dime a dozen." It took until 2022 to shutter my communications boutique. I moved full-time to the mysticism of the Tarot. For decades I had been studying on my own the occult. In April 2021, The New York Times saluted the Tarot as a tool for self-awareness and introspection. Accessing that mode of knowing represents a shift to what's not evidence-based. 

NOT SORTED OUT YET

The prompt (a concept ChatGPT has made famous) for that transition had been how I experienced being contracted on retainer supposedly for communications strategy and content by law firm Paul Weiss. Never had I felt so less-than. The shock was seismic. Before that, the chair Brad Karp had interacted with me in ways that boosted my sense of a professional self. That 24+ months could even have been classified as mentoring.

My role was direclty overseen by the Paul Weiss Chief Marketing Officer Luke Ferrandino. Karp was not in the loop.

During that two-month timeframe there had been no contract outlining my duties, no metrics on how my performance would be measured, no Non-Disclosure Agreement specifying what I could or could not do, and no real work. Actually there was not one assignment. 

To simulate a work product I scrambled to pound out blog posts on my influencer site and repurposed them. On professional anonymous networks law firm associates balk about been stuck with blogging, not having access to the kind of assignments which get them somewhere.

Then there was no choice: I was spiraling into a downward emotional trajectory. The state of being was extreme angst. I pulled the plug. That was June 1, 2022.  

Since then I continue to have anxiety attacks. Are they correlated with that period of not knowing what to do, how to do it, and what I should be doing to hold onto that source of income? That will remain a mystery. We never know, do we. There is that Zen mantra: Clear Thinking, Don't Know.  

OF COURSE, THE AI CHATBOTS

What was obvious then and is even more on point currently in this era of chatbots: As a content-producer I was not being treated as a value-adding member of the team. That was that. 

Finally I got it. Over was the career in that niche. I deactivated the syndicated blog, ending being an influencer in legal. So much for the credential of having attended Harvard Law School. Should I have been wary when the thick envelope had arrived in the snail mail back then? Not euphoric?

 More of a platform for building respect has been the Tarot workshop I had taken for 40 bucks at Strega spiritual center in Sierra Vista, Arizona. The ROI has been wild.

Here is the grand irony. Associates and even partners in law firms, yesyesyes in those high perches of knowledge work, frequently aren't treated with much respect either. That is captured in this post on Fishbowl Big Law:

"Partners, push back on unreasonable client demands. For the love of god I can’t keep losing sleep because people pleasers can’t say no. I need to find a new job…"

Here is the thread

Meanwhile, of course, chatbots are a threat to myriad kinds of roles in law firms. Overall the technology isn't ready for primetime for law-firm use. Accuracy isn't 100%. Nuances aren't communicated. Here is a recent beef on Reddit Big Law: 

"Example of asking ChatGPT a legal question and it providing an incorrect citation with complete confidence and then (initially) lying about its mistake after I called it out."

Read the thread with the 31 comments.

Essentially, though, there are high expectations for the fourth version of ChatGPT, to be released in several months. 

THE PAIN

So here you could be. You made an investment in higher education, you paid your dues getting, holding, and moving onto better white collar work, and you made sacrifices.

But so much of all that for so many of us has come to taste like ashes in our mouths. 

Know that iconic commercial about wanting to give the world a Coca-Cola? I wish I could give the world insight about the implications of AI. It could make the economic disruptions of the Industrial Revolution seem like small potatoes.

Smart intuitive career and communications coaching, including using the tarot. Try it, with a five-minute complimentary session. Totally confidential. Then fees customized for your unique budget.

Please make an appointment with janegenova374@gmail.com