Too late to catch up…

I think I picked the wrong year to go and work in a developing country.

One of the constant worries I have is that, despite my efforts to stay across global trends in the workplace, the working world will “move on” without me and I won’t be able to catch up.

A year ago, shortly before I left Australia, the literature world was rocked by the revelation that millions of creative literary works has been used for the purposes of training generative AI platforms - without the consent of the copyright owners. Even now, there is a general consensus across my networks (predominantly people connected with the Australian publishing and literature sector) that this was a bad thing, and we should not be supporting industries that steal with impunity from creatives who are already underpaid for their work. And then there’s the environmental impact of data centres.

And yet, I’m hearing report after report about the implementation of Gen AI in the workplace back in Australia. The common phrase I hear is that AI will empower us to take care of banal, mundane repetitive work. I also hear comments from comms workers that the work that they do is shifting drastically from the creative process of planning, writing and editing content to the more mundane and banal act of generating and assessing AI-created content.

I also hear anecdotes from people who now use gen AI platforms to draft their documents and even write their emails. I read an article today about news providers who are moving to AI to draft all their scripts for news reporting.

I have a lot of complicated feelings about all this. I’m all for free access to information, but the scope to bulk-mine creative works for commercial gain is testing my idea what is fair and accessible. What’s more, we were warned years and years ago (arguably since the birth of science fiction writing!) of the ethical questions around the use of AI. To push back on it now is a case of closing the proverbial gate when the horse has well and truly bolted.

My fear is that we at the very least keep educated on how to use AI in our work and set some values-based parameters on how we can do so that is the best use of our skills and time whilst still producing quality work. At worst, we just need to suck it up and get on board or get redundant.

I still don’t know what this is going to mean for my work when I return to Australia in the coming months. I’m already feeling like the job market is much harder to get a foothold in now than it was a few years ago. I find it fascinating that the APS has released a policy around the use of AI in applying for jobs - acknowledging that some people will use AI to write their job applications, and expecting them to declare it if asked. I don’t use AI to write my applications - I value my ability to write applications in my own voice and apply my own values, not that of an algorithm. But it won’t be long until it is assumed that any given job application has been AI generated (and probably shortlisted using AI). As the cost of living pressures push government to create more efficiencies, this all feels a bit too inevitable.

All this said, I firmly believe that the thing that will never be replaced is our capacity for human connection, through crafting creative works, our social interactions and having integrity in the values that underpin our work.