Are you a small business owner curious about using Artificial Intelligence? Wondering if it can help your business, streamline processes, or worried it's too complicated and going to spit out ridiculous content that you'd never be able to use? Platforms like ChatGPT, Bard, MagicMedia, AI images and artificial voices etc. can be amazing tools, but the more you know about HOW to use them, the more you'll get out of them. Keeping up with the fast-paced endless changes and updates for small business owners, with more and more artificial intelligence coming into every platform we're using, can make you feel lost lost about where to start, and I've heard a few people saying that all this AI stuff has made them feel ike a dinosaur ... but, I'm sharing some practical tips on how AI is an incredible opportunity for your business to flourish ... and I also talk about the rotten sides of Artificial Intelligence (as it stands now in 2024) with AI's bias; racism, sexism, ableism and ageism. It's a big read - enjoy!
AI: The Good, The Meh, The Human Touch;
AI’s lightning-fast, and wow it can really save you hours (if not weeks!) of time ... for example, we create Reels out of our long-form YouTube live podcasts, and what used to take hours and hours, now takes around 15 minutes. I'm not kidding! We use vidyo.ai to turn long-form content into short-form in a flash! It's awesome 🙌
One of the complaints about AI is that it can really miss that *special something*—the human touch, feelings, and creativity that people vibe with. While this is a concern for people ... diving into the digital word soup of AI it's super obvious when captions are AI-written and not edited by humans, words like "unleash" are VERY popular in AI-crafted messages, and "empower," "transform," "revolutionize," and "accelerate." These emojis are super popular with AI-created content, too; 💥🚀🤖
The tone also, can be a bit buttoned-up and precise - sometimes missing a little human spark and quirky flair, so mixing in your unique voice can turn AI-generated content can really make a difference!
Google’s onto this, too—they’re not fans of robotic talk, and you'll find your website content TANK in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) aka Google rankings, because Google bots pick up bot-written content. So tread carefully, and use it as a TOOL for IDEAS as a starting point, not your end content that gets published as-is. 
AI's Your Sidekick, Not the Star
Mix AI’s speedy skills (especially when you're having a less-than-creative-day with your real, incredible, human brain. It's all about the PROMPT. Yep, truly! The more you FEED Ai, the better the output could be.
For example, my prompt to ChatGPT got me some great results:
I wrote: I am a digital marketing coach who helps small business owners to achieve visibility online; driving traffic to their website, getting great engagement on their socials, getting visible online, attracting their ideal customers and clients, and growing their business.
ChatGPT, please create 20 questions my ideal client would have, and how my monthly membership would solve their issues of feeling overwhelmed, confused, and struggling with their marketing.
My tagline is: Inspiring & empowering brands & business owners to become digital marketing SUPERSTARS!
ChatGPT's response:
Hey Kylie! Love that you're all about empowering those digital marketing superstars in the making. 💫 Let's dive right into those questions your ideal clients might be pondering, and how your monthly membership is the game-changer they need!
- "How do I increase traffic to my website?" 🌐 Your membership offers step-by-step strategies to boost website visibility and SEO tricks to get those clicks soaring.
- "What content gets the best engagement on social media?" 📱 Dive into content creation workshops that reveal the secrets to engaging posts that resonate with your audience.
- "How can I stand out online in a crowded market?" 🌟 Access exclusive branding masterclasses that help carve out a unique space for your brand online.
- "I'm struggling with consistency in my digital marketing efforts. Help!" 🔄 Your membership includes planning tools and schedules to keep marketing efforts streamlined and consistent.
- "Which digital marketing channels should I focus on for my business?" 📊 Get personalised guidance on choosing the right platforms that align with your business goals and audience.
- "How can I convert my social media followers into paying customers?" 💸 Unlock proven conversion strategies and funnels that turn followers into loyal customers.
- "I'm overwhelmed by analytics. How can I use data to improve my marketing?" 📈 Simplified analytics training will help you understand and utilise data to refine your strategies.
- "What are the latest digital marketing trends I should be aware of?" 🚀 Stay ahead with monthly trend updates and how to leverage them for your business.
- "How do I create a powerful email marketing campaign?" 📧 Master the art of email marketing with templates and strategies that increase open rates and engagement.
- "Can I get personalised feedback on my marketing efforts?" 👀 Benefit from group coaching sessions and peer reviews for tailored advice and support.
- "How do I manage my time effectively with so many marketing tasks?" ⏳ Discover time-management hacks and tools that streamline your marketing processes.
- "What's the best way to increase my online visibility locally?" 📍 Learn local SEO tactics and community engagement strategies that put your business on the map.
- "How can I create a loyal online community around my brand?" 💬 Engage in community-building workshops that foster meaningful connections with your audience.
- "I'm new to this. How do I start with digital marketing?" 🚶♂️ Your membership offers foundational courses that guide you step by step from the basics to advanced techniques.
- "How can I keep up with the constant changes in digital marketing?" 🔄 Monthly updates and workshops ensure you're always in the loop with the latest in digital marketing
- "What tools should I use to make my marketing efforts more efficient?" 🛠 Get the lowdown on the best digital tools and software, with tutorials on how to use them effectively.
- "How do I make my brand's voice more authentic online?" 🗣 Engage in branding exercises that help you craft and convey an authentic voice that resonates with your audience.
- "How can I use video content effectively in my marketing?" 🎥 Explore video marketing workshops that teach you how to create impactful videos that captivate your audience.
- "What are some creative ways to engage my online audience?" 🎨 Access creative content ideas and interactive campaigns that boost engagement and brand loyalty.
- "How do I measure the success of my marketing campaigns?" 📏 Learn to set and track key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the impact and success of your marketing efforts.
I wouldn't use all of that, and I would re-word much of it to suit my brand voice, but it's a great starting point to get my creative juices flowing!
If you want to try this prompt out for your business try replacing the words inside the {} with your business;
I am a {digital marketing coach} who helps {small business owners} to achieve {visibility online; driving traffic to their website, getting great engagement on their socials, getting visible online, attracting their ideal customers and clients, and growing their business}.
ChatGPT, please create 20 questions my ideal client would have, and how my {monthly membership would solve their issues of feeling overwhelmed, confused, and struggling their marketing}.
This is my tagline: {Inspiring & empowering brands & business owners to become digital marketing SUPERSTARS!}
The more you feed the Ai beast in your prompts, the more relevant and useable your content will be!
Helping Your Dream Clients and Customers ... Ask ChatGPT to create some buyer persona's or client avatars to help with this:
- Know Their Hassles: What are some of the problems your dream clients have?
- Your Magic Move: Show how you solve those problems! Your product or service is their solution.
- Time to Act: What’s should they do? Ask them to buy, book, or join you on the journey.
Eye Contact in Videos
If you are considering using AI for creating videos, they're a great help for sure. There's an option to create an Avatar of your self to do videos for you and the widely used AI voices if you are unhappy using your own voice or make a clone of your voice so you don't have to record it yourself. IMHO I'm not a fan, but that may change ... I prefer to look, listen and connect with a human ... but if you're not comfortable creating content where you're the star (speaking to camera etc) then give these platforms a try - getting your message out there it's what's important here! Helpful tools like prompters and editors to enhance and make the production easier will help you be more consistent reaching your ideal audience.
Pro tip:
Remember those sketchy eyes? Not cool! When you're recording doing videos, look straight into that lens like you’re chatting with a friend. Otherwise, you could look like you're an AI bot! Check this one out ... 
Click here for by far my worst ever Ai video ... it's actually a snapchat filter and it's a shocker!!! 🤣
Never let Ai have the last say
Just like with sketchy eyes, AI can have multiple other glitches, like spreading misinformation and reinforcing problematic societal biases. These can not only harm your business, but our society as a whole.
It's important to always do your own fact-checking after Ai has generated information for you. As a human, you have the critical thinking and contextual understanding AI doesn't, so always remember no matter how informed AI may seem, you're the one publishing the content, so you need to take responsibility for the legitimacy of the content and have the final say!
Now, what is AI bias? Let's get serious ... it's bad.
AI bias is an inherent prejudice in machine learning and algorithm systems that reflects historical and social human biases. Basically, it studies data that is biased (either explicitly or not) and therefore learns to favour certain groups over others, or stereotype groups in specific ways.
This can be dangerous as it further creates inequality and reduced opportunity. The four main areas of bias to look out for are sexism, ageism, racism and ableism, so lets look at some examples of how these biases may manifest in AI.
Why don't you start with this Reel I shared recently, showcasing experiences I've had a plus-sized 50 year old woman, and how AI always wants to make me overtly "sexy" even when I don't ask for it!
CLICK HERE.
Sexism:
Playing around with image-producing AI tools like Dall-E, it's clear the sexism evident in its programming. Women are depicted with either baby-faces or closer to senior-citizens. They also default to a thin body, or one that is over-sexualised. Men, however, are seen to have a better portrayed age range and body standards. It isn't absolutely perfect for men though, as The Bulimia Project found, both men and women are held to unrealistic body ideals that are amplified through Ai.
Sexism in Ai also goes beyond image-generating technology. It can actually discriminate against gender and sex to the point that it harms people's livelihoods. A real-life example from the IPI Global Observatory sums up this sexism perfectly:
"For example, while selecting top candidates during a hiring process, Amazon’s automated resume screening system discriminated against women. The data used to train the recruitment model was informed by resume samples from a 10-year period, where women were underrepresented. The resume screening model thus used “linguistic signals” associated with successful male candidates. Once the bias was discovered, Amazon discarded this model."
Ageism:
I touched on ageism above, and how it favours naturally aging men over women, whose requirement to sustain youth at every age in our society is reinforced through Ai. Whe I prompted "middle-age" the images and videos it was making of women were definitely women well over 60. Just head into Canva and so an image search for "healthy middle-aged women" and you'll find a very small number of grey-haired slim women, often in nursing homes or hospitals. Wow.
Ageism has also been found to overlook the needs of older or younger people, being better suited towards certain mid-range generations.
This has been theorised to be because of their non-representation in AI training data. For example, one study reported findings that:
"[A]uthors of one paper [used to train AI] described the number of subjects 60 years old and older or younger than 16 as ‘too few to be considered for [AI] training as it is commonly acknowledged that imbalanced data will degrade the learning and result in biased estimation’". This reinforces that AI just isn't equipped to be equitable towards our different generations.
Racism:
Racism has been found in many self-operated technologies, so it's (devastatingly) not surprising that it's encoded into Ai as well. It's found to misidentify people of specific races and mix them with others, or even be unable to detect people with certain skin tones. It's also been found to be biased towards other groups, showing the need for equal representation in areas like STEM programmers and AI training data sets.
My first horror experience of this was putting a very SHORT prompt into ChatGPT when it was first partnering with Dall-E, "Plus size woman working in digital marketing" and without any race prompt, the image it generated for me was a very curvaceous black woman. I then asked for a "plus size white woman working in digital marketing" and it gave me a skinny older (at least 60) white woman. Go figure.
A well-documented real-life example of this was shared by Joy Boulamwini, founder of the Algorithmic Justice League. In her New York Times article, she wrote about how when she was a MIT student, the robot she programmed with AI-powered facial detection software couldn't detect her dark-skinned face.
"I had to borrow my white roommate’s face to finish the assignment." She wrote. "Later, working on another project as a graduate student at the M.I.T. Media Lab, I resorted to wearing a white mask to have my presence recognised."
How shocking is that?!
Ableism:
The final and well-known bias we're covering is ableism. This has been found in Ai through tools benefitting able-bodied people, or reinforcing negative stereotypes of people with some form of disability in image-generating tools.
Anyone who has seen any of our content here at Hello Media knows just how important inclusive marketing and content is, so this is a big point to look out for when using Ai!
Pixelplex uses the example of voice recognition software "that struggles to understand speech impairments, excluding users with such conditions from using the technology."
All of these issues showcase the inherent bias within AI systems, and, as a result, our society. So now that we know more about what biases there are in AI:
How can we keep our businesses safe while still utilising Ai as the incredible tool it can be?!
After reading all of that, this balance may feel nigh-on-impossible but we promise you its not! The most important thing you can do is be aware, and given that you're reading this now, you're already well on your way to becoming an ethical Ai business wiz! You know the most common biases in Ai and how they manifest, so you'll always be double checking Ai content before you commit to using it, ensuring your business, followers, audience, clients and customers are safe.
Own up to using Ai and call out bias! By being transparent with your audience, and showing when it does something wrong, you are not only teaching others to be more aware, but making the ways you do use it more trustworthy, setting you apart from those who don't (or even do!) use it.
Use it to brainstorm, rather than to be a final product. Ai can be great at generating ideas, whether that's for content, creating images or video, or indeed anything you can think of! However, ensure that you then filter its ideas through your own reasoning. Do your own SEO search to double-check the strength and reach of its ideas, and ask yourself: is this somehow sexist? Ageist? Racist? Ableist? Even if you can't find something biased, try to add more representation in anyway. Being inclusive is always going to be the better option!
Alright, HM friends, AI’s a turbo but it isn't always reliable, so use your human touch to seal the deal. Mix them up, stay true, and have fun playing with Ai ~ just as much as I complain about it, I have just as much fun with it!!!