By Susan Matthews Apgood, EVP at 4media group & adjunct professor at American University
At the end of April 2023, I received an email from Kogod School of Business at American University with a headline, “Professors, are you overworked? ChatGPT can help.” It was crunch-time for professors as we worked towards the end of the semester. It was then I realized: instead of looking at ChatGPT as a topic of concern, it was time to embrace it.
ChatGPT was introduced in November 2021, just before December exams. It was all most of my colleagues at American University could talk about, and as worries of cheating and plagiarism surfaced, it was time to figure out the best course of action.
At the same time, in the PR world, the same reaction was taking place with different concerns. Thoughts surfaced of clients no longer needing PR pros to help develop and guide messaging because ChatGPT would be available to use for free. I tried pulling results for a few of my current clients, and the results were good. Not great, but pretty good.
The article I received from American University in April went on to give two solid pieces of advice:
- Let AI devise explanations that make sense to your students; and
- Let AI create low-stakes quizzes to help students retain information.
When applying an understanding of those two statements, we can easily apply them to the PR profession:
- Have a strong starting point for outreach. As PR professionals, ChatGPT can help us get started or provide a fresh start when we need to look at the issue from a different perspective.
- Creating low-stakes opportunities can work in education and PR. We can utilize low-stakes AI tools in PR to channel ideas, create meeting agendas and even draft starter media advisories.
This past semester, I did not have a teaching assistant, but the Harvard Business School Publishing article “Let ChatGPT Be Your Teaching Assistant” helped lighten the load on exams and grading. It was the first time I welcomed the help, and it proved productive and saved time.
On the PR side, thoughts of ChatGPT being able to reach reporters for broadcast pitching has become a concern amongst my 4media group, PRSA and WWPR colleagues. We are not there yet, but we’ve heard rumblings that this is in the works. However, nothing can replace the human side of teaching and pitching.
When asking ChatGPT for information, the following disclaimer appeared: “It’s worth noting that as an AI, my knowledge is based on information available up until September 2021. For the most up-to-date information on the current status of the debt ceiling and any recent developments, I recommend consulting reliable sources or news outlets.”
In higher education as with communications, we are working with current news and trends, and data that is close to two years old will not work. We need to rely on the tools and skills we have and use artificial intelligence as one tool that can enhance our toolkit but certainly not replace it. The internet, social media, and now ChatGPT have all been disrupters in professional services in the last 25 years, and all have helped make our profession stronger – especially when used in conjunction with a qualified professional.