AI means you should be more human

Yesterday I wrote about the advice ChatGPT gave me to navigate government bureaucracies as an "ideas" guy.

It was good advice, and I was pretty impressed how it was able to link the concept of personality with a somewhat specific work scenario.

But still, some things are going to require actual humans, and my guess is that society will value human authenticity even more once most things are done by robots.

Here's an article describing what happened when a Hawaii newspaper used AI video reporters (James and Rose) to do the news:

The AI Reporter That Took My Old Job Just Got Fired

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James, a middle-aged Asian man, and Rose, a younger redhead, were never able to figure out how to present the news in a manner that wasn’t deeply off-putting for viewers. Their program, which ran twice a week on Youtube, Facebook, and Instagram, covered topics as varied as a fall pumpkin giveaway and a vigil for a labor massacre—all in the same distant, matter-of-fact tone of beings incapable of comprehending human emotions.

In one particularly stilted exchange about the pumpkin giveaway, Rose asked James, “And how have these free pumpkins impacted the community?” to which James responded, “The free pumpkins have brought joy to many.”

They consistently butchered difficult Hawaiian names and even had surprising struggles with much simpler words. In their final broadcast on November 4, while discussing an air rifle championship, Rose inexplicably replaced the word “rifle” with the word “referee.”

In the polarized months leading up to the election, the pair managed to inspire visceral, bipartisan contempt. Comments under the videos were nearly universally negative.

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I think the same reason AI generated people are so off-putting is the same reason I found corporate culture to be so off-putting. Corporate culture tries to mold you into something you're not, something artificial.

It's probably one of the reasons why you want to go 1099, so you can be more of yourself.

And based on the reactions to early AI generated people, you should probably lean into being more of who you are and less of what society considers to be a "corporate professional."

It's a competitive advantage you will have as an independent 1099. Don't forget it.

Want the full playbook? Check out Going 1099.