Speaker 1: 0:01

AI artificial intelligence is everywhere. It could absolutely replace your creativity if you let it, but I think that is absolutely a disservice. Ai can help you move faster, think clearer and create more, but the trick is you have to use it right, and in this episode I'm going to break down how I'm using tools like ChatGPT, cloud Replexity and some other creative assistants Not as full-on creative replacements, but assistants and how you can too. So by now we're all familiar with AI tools like ChatGPT. There's also a little bit of like tool fatigue, I think, going around where you know every app seems to be integrating AI and it's kind of overwhelming Not only how to use these tools, but subscription fatigue, like you've got to subscribe to all these different things and do they really help you or are they just trying to take your money? And I think a lot of creators just kind of fall back on over relying on these tools because they get comfortable with it and they lose some authenticity. And I dislike that because I think what is going to make creators stand out in the future is not copying and pasting everything. It's going to have a really unique angle and if you use AI the wrong way, it's going to dilute your unique angle. Ai should make your voice louder, not drown it out. So let me go over, at a high level, some of the AI tools I'm using. It's going to sound like a lot and I'm not making any recommendations here. I just want to give you an overview of what's out there if you're not already familiar with it. So we have ChatGPT Everyone's familiar with that.

Speaker 1: 1:34

That's your reliable all rounder for creative writing, ideation planning. Some people use it as a therapist. People get creative with it. Then there's Claude, which is somewhat more of a writing tool, very similar to ChatGPT but has somewhat more of a writing tool, very similar to ChachiBT but has somewhat more of a thoughtful tone. A lot of people like to use it for long form writing has more human-like responses. Then there's Perplexity, which is fantastic for research and citations. It's replaced Googling things. For me, you can change the model within Perplexity. So, say, I search for something, I can use Perplexity's AI model, or I could use Chachabiti's, or I could use DeepSeek's. It's really handy, I love it.

Speaker 1: 2:17

And then there's Google Gemini, which, funny enough, like I don't think the strongest of any of these tools. One thing, though, that's gotten really better, especially in like the last week is its ability to edit photos. For example, I went on Fiverr and I was trying to have someone edit one of my Apple Memojis it's kind of like an emoji of yourself that you make and I paid a couple people to edit the LA Dodgers logo on my Memoji hat and nobody could get it. I was just like wasting money. But this new latest Google Gemini update first try in 10 seconds added the LA Daughters logo to my Apple Memoji. I'm not a fan of Google Gemini for like research and things like that, but when it comes to image generation or image editing, it's been pretty cool.

Speaker 1: 3:03

Then there's Grok, which is from XAI and it's kind of like a mixture of ChachiBT Claude Perplexity. It does some image generation too, but I've been using Grok more so for social listening because it has access to X. So if I want kind of to get the pulse on how people are thinking about something, I'll hop on Grok and ask you know, what are X users saying about blank, and it can get real-time data by looking out on X and see what people are saying, synthesizing that and giving it back to me. So there's five tools right there, left unchecked. You could just like use just one of these tools to outsource all of your creativity and just input it information and do what it tells you.

Speaker 1: 3:44

But there's a huge problem with that because when you write a prompt or if you're, you know, inputting things to the chatbot, it has a specific goal that might differ from your specific goal, meaning like, say, for example, I wanted it to write a podcast episode for this podcast. The goal of the chatbot, regardless of which one I'm giving here, is going to be to please me. It's going to want to give me an episode that I am happy with, not what you're happy with, not that it will serve you best, which is my goal, is to make an episode that serves you best, and that's a subtle but very, very important difference to highlight. The goal of the AI chatbot is to please me, not my audience, and it will lie to me, saying, yes, I think this is perfect for what your audience would like. And if I don't use my human judgment or even know what to judge and be like you know what this isn't right, then I start to lose that touch between me and what I'm doing. I basically become a slave to the AI.

Speaker 1: 4:49

Now, that's not to say it doesn't come up with fantastic ideas because you think about like a writing room, for example, right, or like a really good tv show like Severance. If you've been watching that, having just finished season two, I can't help but just think like what the writing rooms looked like like. How did they come up with all these unique storylines and things? And, as creators, we're often by ourselves during the writing process, so it's nice to have something to bounce ideas off of. But just like as if you were in a writing room, if you just went with like the first idea that popped up, you're probably not going to have the best ideas, because some ideas need to be challenged and not every idea needs to be executed on.

Speaker 1: 5:26

So the same thing comes to when you're working with AI is to not believe the first thing it says back, to push back, and what you'll find if you haven't already is that sometimes, when you push back, the AI chatbot will go actually you're right and it will start to become more clear, because we think we're being clear sometimes in asking for what we want, but we're really not. We're leaving out key details, we're letting the AI fill in gaps that we probably shouldn't be and again, next thing you know, your unique angle is vanished from the piece that you're working on and you wonder, hmm, why is this not working out for me? So here's a few ways I've been using AI as my creative assistant that I'd like to share with you. So I use AI when coming up with a prompt, just like how I shared a second ago that often we're not that great at asking for what we want. You can be aware that you're not that great at asking for what you want and still not be that great at asking for what you want. Just because you know you're aware of the problem doesn't mean that you fix the problem. And so, for me, the same thing like I think I'm explaining what I want pretty well until I actually workshop what I want. To put it simply, before I even get to like the writing part, I work on the prompting part. I'm using AI to like brainstorm angles, different titles, different ideas, and I'm starting to shape what it is that I want, because I found, through the process of shaping what it is that I want, I started to get clear of what it is that I'm creating, who it's for, and that helps shape the draft in the next part.

Speaker 1: 6:56

So what this looks like in action is like asking AI to help me refine or clean up a prompt that I'm going to ask in the next phase when it comes to structuring things maybe an outline or questions I should be addressing or what order I should place things in and I'm not looking for AI to get it perfect right off the bat. So what I'll do is like a brain dump and then I'll say, clean this up and turn it into a prompt that I can ask ChatGPT and then it will clean it up and I'll notice sometimes like it gets it wrong. I'm like that's not what I wanted, or I'll delete this, or oh, you know what. I forgot to include this, but what it gives me is better than what I had. It's my assistant. It didn't replace my thinking. I didn't just ask it one line and it gave me back a whole bunch of things. I want to give it as much information as I can so that it can be equipped to clean up as much as I can. I can delete some things, maybe add some things. So I'll take that prompt, put it into a new chat and then ask more about what I want.

Speaker 1: 7:51

Right, and give it the context of what it is that I'm creating. After that, what most people do is just copy it and then publish it. But that's a mistake. You have to think about the context. It doesn't matter if it's a text message, an email, a video script, a title for a podcast episode. Whatever it is. You are the owner of that, not the AI. The AI does not care what happens next After it completes its job. All it's trying to do again is make you happy. But your job, as the owner of the outcome of whatever it is that you're creating, is that it's captured by your audience, that it's understood by your audience. And you can't get lazy here. You can't just be like well, I don't know if I trust what. I think. I trust more the AI.

Speaker 1: 8:33

If you get in that headspace, you're going to flatten your voice, you're going to lose out on what you could be gaining through all this work you're doing, of whatever it is that you're creating, and a simple routine to get into is, instead of just copying and pasting whatever it gives you is to rewrite it, whether you know just typing it out in like a notes or whatever it is to let what it gives you and what you put out there filtered through you reading it and like typing it and it's a little bit extra work, yeah, but oftentimes when you're writing you're like I would never say it like that, and those are the little pieces that add up to be big pieces later on. And what happens is you start to build a feedback loop of you critiquing the AI output. Then you iterate on it and it becomes a co-creation process versus a I use whatever it gives me process, and not only will your content have more of your voice and be more unique and resonate with more people, you'll have a deeper understanding of what you like and what you dislike. You'll effectively become a better content manager and curator and know in the future, like how you do things without being so reliant on AI that you feel incapable of even producing anything without it.

Speaker 1: 9:43

Some closing thoughts. I think these tools are absolutely amazing when used correctly, but I just am seeing every week people use them wrong or over relying on them and it's missing their voice, and it's from well-intentioned people that have a lack of trust in what they're saying. It's avoidable. But at the same time, I do have some empathy, because these tools are brand new. We did not grow up with these things. Nobody has, like, taken the time to be like hey, here's how you use these groundbreaking, technologically advanced tools that can empower you. I'm curious what you think too. As always, feel free to hop in the creator club and share your experiences, your tricks, your tips that you've found working with these AI tools. I'll catch you in the next one.

Speaker 1: 10:29

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