Hire an AI intern

On using Artificial Intelligence tools for mundane tasks.

My writing process always begins with a brain dump of everything that I have to say about a topic. It is a stream of thoughts typed into a document. That is why my first drafts are always messy. It doesn’t have a structure and lacks clarity.

Like a knight needs a sword to fight, my tool for everyday writing is Notion. I use it for my drafts, notes, and ideas in a single place. It's like Google Docs, but better. And when they added an artificial intelligence (AI) tool in the Notion workspace. It was a gamechanger.

I turn to Notion AI, to make sense of what I have just typed out. It digs through the mess of words and presents a flowchart to make sense of my first draft. I can then use the flow chat to structure my essay. Using different prompts it helps me brainstorm ideas, find a theme, draw a mind map to visualize my writing. It also helps me edit the essay for grammar, spelling and tone. Notion AI is really good at these tasks, reducing the amount of time I spend on them.

The flowchart of my first draft of this essay created by Notion AI

Can I do these tasks myself? Sure. But it is tedious and takes a lot of time. Why drive from New York to Los Angeles when you can fly there.

While I look at using these AI tools to increase productivity, there are skeptics who fear that these tools will take away human jobs. The fear of technology replacing humans jobs is eternal. Any new technology on the market is a potential job killer. Computers are coming for your jobs, automation is coming for your jobs, [insert technology] is coming for your jobs.

But AI tools aren’t coming for your job.

To understand why AI won't take away our jobs, it's important to first understand how it works. To teach an AI to recognize a cat, for example, you have to show it thousands of images of cats and non-cats. You have to reward it when it correctly identifies a cat and slap it when it is wrong. This process requires human intervention.

Just like interns are used for the tedious tasks. These AI tools are like an intern that will assist you with your job. It will replace the mundane tasks that are part of your job. But it needs to be managed in order to be effective. Even with Notion AI, I still have to refine and read over its responses before I finalize it.

The key is to use AI as an intern - manage it, and refine its work. We can use it to enhance our productivity and effectiveness. We are not far from the day when we will have AI bots interning for us and assisting us with daily tasks. It isn’t coming for your job, it’s coming to apply for an internship. So go hire an AI intern.

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Further resources for the curious souls:

• A Completely Non-Technical Explanation of AI and Deep Learning

• The Inside Story of ChatGPT’s Astonishing Potential - TED Talk by Greg Brockman - OpenAI cofounder

• The Amazing AI Super Tutor for Students and Teachers - TED Talk by Sal Khan - Founder of Khan Academy

• Kevin Kelly on the Tim Ferris Show- Will AI take our jobs?

• All In Podcast: AutoGPT's massive potential and risk, AI regulation.

• Why AI Is Incredibly Smart — and Shockingly Stupid - Computer scientist Yejin Choi