#11: In Conversation with Jemilah Senter, about Opportunities and Risks of AI Tools Like ChatGPT

Association Station

Today’s guest is Jemilah Senter, of MCI USA. Throughout her career, Jemilah, who lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has focused singularly on marketing and communications, including marketing strategy, brand developing, marketing technology assessment and implementation, and more. For the past two years, Jemilah was vice president of marketing and communications at MCI USA, where she oversaw the creative team for the associations division. Recently, she moved into a new role to lead marketing for MCI USA.

Jemilah and I are both interested in generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT. As members of SIIA’s AM&P Network for associations, we were both asked to co-host a generative AI workshop in May for AM&P Network members. Jemilah co-hosted an event in Chicago, while I co-hosted one in DC.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why associations should be paying attention to generative AI tools.
• These are “tools,” devices that can assist us.
• Associations should be talking about how they will use generative AI so the entire association is aligned in its approach.
• Generative AI use cases for associations include content ideation, headline writing, background research on a topic, analysis of survey results, ideas for non-dues revenue, creating audience personas.
• An AI tool is like a “booster chair” that can be used to give you that “lift” to get you started on a project or to inspire you on a topic.
• Prompt engineering — how you ask AI a question — is a skill to develop to improve your use of the tool and get better answers.
• Why ChatGPT and similar tools should not be used to write content, which should be authentic, unique and reflective of your brand.
• The biggest risk with these tools revolves around quality control — ChatGPT doesn’t fact-check itself. Watch out for incorrect or inconsistent responses, as well as plagiarism. It will also provide made-up citations — asking it for sources is not enough; you need to fact-check those sources.
• Another risk is around intellectual property and copyright. ChatGPT is pulling information from existing online content, so does someone already own that content? And even if not, it’s still not unique content.
• Consider creating an association cross-functional team to start exploring use cases for generative AI tools.

Resources:

• Jemilah on LinkedIn
• Jemilah’s email address: [e-mail]
• MCI website

Check out Melanie’s other podcast for freelancers, consultants and solo business owners: Deliberate Freelancer (free on any podcast app).