Transparency is the key to building trust with AI-generated content
The other day, a colleague of mine was telling me about a conversation he had with a friend who works in higher education. She lamented the fact that more and more of her students are turning to AI for help with their assignments. Unfortunately, their use is often highly problematic. Sometimes, they’re simply too trusting, resulting in work that’s riddled with misinformation. But in other cases, they’re passing AI-generated content off as their own material. It doesn’t help that the world of AI is a lot like the Wild West at the moment. In a world where formal restrictions are few and far between, it’s up to individual creators to ensure that they’re using AI in an ethical manner.?
Why is it important to use AI ethically?
Deceitful content is nothing new. From counterfeit coins to staged photographs of cryptids, there have always been people looking to hoodwink others. But this threat was counterbalanced to some extent by the fact that it traditionally required considerable effort on the part of the fraudster. But with AI, that is no longer the case. With AI, you can create photorealistic fakes with the push of a button. And with social media, deceit can easily be spread far and wide. People are understandably unsettled about the realities of this new world. This means that even the most innocuous use of AI can undermine your reputation if your readers feel like you aren’t being honest with them.??
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Transparency is key
Transparency is the cornerstone of ethical AI usage. The world may want to be deceived,?or so the adage goes, but individuals tend to get annoyed if they feel like they’ve been lied to. If your audience realizes that you’ve been secretly using AI in public-facing content, it’s going to be hard for them to trust you. If you’re being deceptive about something like that, they may well wonder what else you’re hiding.?
Luckily, simply being upfront about the ways in which you’re using AI can go a long way to establishing trust with your audience. For example, if you used AI to smooth out some rough passages in a post, you could insert a disclaimer saying something like “This post was edited with [insert name of AI tool].” You could even have a dedicated page on your site that explains your use of AI like?this example from?The San Francisco Chronicle.?
Note the line about how “no content from our newsrooms will be published without an editor’s review.” This helps assure readers that AI is genuinely adding value to the?Chronicle’s content.?