The AI Era is Here: How Can SHSMD Members Navigate This Brave New World?

Everyone is talking about artificial intelligence (AI), and no doubt as you’ve heard, it will change everything! That might be a bit of hyperbole, but AI is clearly a topic of intense interest. And I’m sure many of us will be discussing the numerous implications of AI during the upcoming SHSMD Connections conference in September. 

For health care strategists, tools like ChatGPT, Google’s Bard and many others are raising questions about how applicable AI is for our daily work. And more to the point, will generative AI replace us and if so, how soon? 

I've had many conversations during the last six months about how AI will impact SHSMD members, especially those of us working in communication, marketing and PR roles. People are nervous. That reaction is certainly understandable, but it’s not very productive or strategic. There is a better way forward. 

Instead of feeling trapped, it’s best to dive right in and understand as much as you can about what’s happening with AI. 

A Quick Level Set on AI 

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, generative AI refers to models that generate text, images, and other content based on the data they were trained on. These models encode a simplified representation of their training data and draw from it to create a new work that’s similar, but not identical, to the original data. If you want to get even more technical about it, read this. 

This type of AI is what most people – and SHSMD members – are experimenting with now. So, what does the future hold? 

Admittedly, predicting AI’s path is a guessing game. I don't think the emergence of AI will eliminate the need for communicators, marketers, planners and other health care strategists. However, it will clearly change how we do things. 

Setting Yourself Up for Success 

So, what's the best way to think about how AI might impact your career? This is the right mindset: 

“AI’s not going to take your job. Somebody that knows AI is going to take your job. You need to learn about this stuff.” – Scott Galloway. 

Even that statement might be a little too strong, but now is the time to learn how AI can – and can’t – take your professional work to the next level. 

Here are the best steps you can take right now: 

• Keep connected with new developments in AI. 

• Use some of the available AI tools so that you can at least understand them. 

• Don't get swayed too much by the biggest negative or positive voices on AI. 

• Think critically about what's happening with AI in your profession and have a personal perspective on it. 

Overall, the most important step at this point is just taking action to test and understand what’s out there. Read up on developments as well. If you don’t do that, it’s likely you will be left behind and quickly find yourself having to catch up. 

The Case for Cautious Optimism 

If I had to choose a single phrase to sum up how I feel about AI it would be cautiously optimistic. I think there are clearly areas where AI can help health care strategists. Here are a few: 

• Editing and revising existing content. ChatGPT is especially good at this. 

• Summarizing key points from longer documents. 

• Generating first drafts of simple communications. 

• Creating rough drafts of communication or marketing plans. 

• Developing scripts for presentations from already drafted material. 

Now, there are lots of limitations to keep in mind. Just look at the message that comes up when you log into Bard, 

“Bard will not always get it right. Bard may give inaccurate or inappropriate responses. When in doubt, use the ‘Google it’ button to check Bard’s responses. 

Bard will get better with your feedback. Please rate responses and flag anything that may be offensive or unsafe.” 

In other words, it’s a work in progress. 

These are some considerations you should always keep in mind: 

• Information produced by AI tools cannot be considered definitive. It must be fact-checked. 

• AI cannot capture your personal or company’s brand voice. First draft copy tends to be mediocre. 

• Any content produced is generated in part or whole from something that already exists, including work that might be copyright protected. At this point, I would not be comfortable posting external content generated by AI – even with substantial rewriting. To that point, any content you put in an AI tool might train the tool and be used by others.  

• Bias is a potentially huge problem with AI.  

• Never enter confidential or personally identifiable information into AI tools. At this point, there is just no guarantee of who that information might be shared with or exposed to. Its’ not worth the risk. Deidentify everything you do. 

As you might have noticed, my list of cautions outweighs the useful applications for me! That might change at some point, but it doesn’t feel likely to happen in 2023. 

Closing Thought: Adjust Your Sails! 

Let’s go back to where we started: what's the best way to think about how AI might change your career?  

Be ready to adjust your sails! What am I talking about? I’m not a sailor at all, but this is one of my favorite quotes: "The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails." 

We can’t pretend that AI won’t impact our careers. And we also can’t expect AI to fix everything. 

Overall, some changes with AI will be positive and others won't. Maybe in the extreme. 

The truth is that nobody truly knows what will happen next with AI, but there is clearly opportunity here as well as uncertainty. Embrace that. 

Be a realist about what’s happening. Adjust the sails now. 

Alan Shoebridge 
AVP, National Communication at Providence and SHSMD President 

The original version of this page was published at:  https://my.shsmd.org/blogs/the-shsmd-team/2023/06/20/the-ai-era-is-here-how-can-shsmd-members-navigate