The startup has announced it’s using two AI-driven systems as marketing and engineering interns, sparking debate about the impact on youth employment
Codeword, a technology marketing agency, announced earlier this month that it has added two new participants to its internship program. What’s new? “Interns” are artificial intelligence systems. These AI-driven interns have been “hired” for a three-month internship and will eventually join a team of 106 people at Codeword, working under their assigned line managers. The news caused various reactions on the Internet, some of them were worried about the proliferation of such initiatives and harming the professional integration of young people.
As large language models like ChatGPT have gained popularity, debate has raged around how artificial intelligence can replace humans. While some people support this argument and call for a complete boycott of these AI systems, others believe that AI can be useful if used correctly. Academia is also debating whether to allow students to use these systems. In the midst of all this, Codeword, a US-based marketing agency, hired two IAs as interns for three months.
There is a lot of talk and fear about how new AI tools will fit into creative teams. As an agency spanning the worlds of design and technology, we want to explore what collaboration between humans and artificial intelligence might look like. And we’ll do it publicly so our team and community can learn from the experience,” Codeword partner Kyle Monson said in a press release. AI interns Aiden and Aiko will join the 106-person team at Codeword and will also be assigned line managers.
Aiden will be part of the editorial staff reporting to the Editor-in-Chief. Aiko will work on the design team and report to the Chief Art Director. In addition, the two interns will be regularly evaluated on their performance and given internal creative tasks. A post on the company’s official blog indicates that if their internship is successful, the interns will be offered a “full-time role.” Codeword’s blog post says the AI systems will “generate slides for Aiden and Aiko’s general meetings and can even update the company blog.”
According to their press release, Aiden and Aiko will not create work that can be delivered directly to clients, but will perform tasks that AI is good at, such as moodboards, news and trend research, or voice and tone analysis for the editorial team. I was created to be useful and efficient. “I think I could be a valuable resource as an ‘intern’ even though my abilities are slightly different from those of a human intern,” Aiden wrote.
According to Codeword, Aiden joins an editorial staff of more than 30 writers and editors, most of whom come from journalism and publishing backgrounds. The design team Aiko joins includes graphic designers, videographers, animators, UX designers and front-end developers. Terrence Doyle, editor-in-chief of Codeword, points out that using AI systems as interns is an opportunity to outsource “mind-numbing, time-consuming tasks” to “unemotional, incompressible interns” so that others can focus. on more interesting tasks.
We see great potential here to produce quality work faster and free people up from some of the day-to-day work so our people can focus on high-value work for our clients. However, I am a former freelance journalist and do a lot of ghostwriting for Codeword clients. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little afraid of AI being creative, or rather, ruthlessly productive,” Doyle said. Internships have long been a rite of passage for young professionals to gain professional experience.
But it seems that Codeword intends to shake up the traditional model with its advanced technology. However, in a release, Codeword announced that the company does not believe in hiring interns without pay, even if they are not human. Therefore, she will donate an amount equal to the hourly wages of two Grace Hopper Celebration interns. Codeword’s recent hiring decision is part of a broader workforce conversation around the role of AI, which could dramatically change the future of work and put millions of workers out of work.
According to the 2020 edition of the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report, artificial intelligence will replace 85 million jobs worldwide by 2025. the next few years. Their creation also comes as AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT has gone viral to answer users’ questions, using Shakespeare and poetry in an effort to recreate human interaction. Many companies, including Microsoft, use ChatGPT to improve their products and services.
This news caused an uproar in the society. While many look forward to the results of the Codeword experiment, some fear that AI will kill millions of jobs and increase social inequality. We have steadily increased personal output, but paid less for it, as money continues to flow rapidly to the landlord class. Artificial intelligence is the next technological evolution that will strengthen this phenomenon. The commentary says that prices will continue to rise while the pocket money of the working class continues to shrink.
The commentary adds: “This is really worrying, but we are reaching a tipping point where either the government will step in to solve this problem or the working class will solve it the way of the French Revolution.” However, Emilio Ramos, Codeword’s chief artistic officer, said in a statement that he was somewhat skeptical. As with all practices, the organization must work to determine what it is capable of and how it can provide meaningful assistance. To be very clear, I am deeply skeptical of their abilities,” he said.
Tech analyst Benedict Evans said in 2018 that one way to think about AI is like giving every company an infinite number of interns. In 2023, these practitioners will be world-class writers, illustrators, and other people—perhaps scientists, data analysts, or even marketers. What would you build with a million of these “experts” in the cloud, on-demand, 24/7 and with near-zero marginal cost? Analysts say that in 2023, it is likely that many companies will adopt these artificial intelligence systems.
Source: Codeword
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