Recently I heard one of my daughters say that some of her high school friends were using ChatGPT to write their papers for school. Then I read about a couple who had used AI technology to write their wedding vows. And I found out that Viso.ai’s Facial Emotion Analysis technology has the ability to mine opinions by reading and categorizing human emotions from pictures and videos. So, yeah, AI is pretty much everywhere these days. We’ve been talking about AI in some of our recent blogs like:
The Pros and Cons of AI Presentation Design Tools
How AI is Changing Presentation Design
How To Use AI in Your Presentation Design
Today we want to give you a quick guidebook of a few more things to consider when using AI for your presentations. We’ll break our suggestions down depending on how you are using it: for content or for design. Let’s start with how the US is governing it to get a feeling for how AI is currently held accountable.
Current Legislation
According to an article in the New York Times in February of 2023 by Peter Coy, in the US, “the National Institute of Standards and Technology has issued…the Risk Management Framework for A.I. that many companies including Google and Amazon Web Services, have signed on to. It says A.I. should be valid, reliable, transparent, explainable, interpretable, privacy-enhanced and fair, with harmful bias removed.” That said, AI still blurs the line not only between human and virtual, but also between information and entertainment. While there are organizations governing AI, legislation always lags behind new technology, so it’s best that you know how to use it wisely in your presentations. So let’s look at a few of the main things to consider depending on how you are using AI.
If you are using AI to develop presentation content, here are a couple things to consider:
1. You need to understand how this affects your expertise on the topic. It’s one thing to do the research and writing yourself and then develop presentation content based on your knowledge. It’s quite another to have AI write content for you because it takes you out of the learning process. If you are someone who needs to know the information in the presentation, or if you will have to answer audience/customer questions, you need to make sure you don’t lose your standing as an expert by farming out the research and writing to an AI generator.
2. You need to consider how you’ll handle credit. Audiences generally assume that presenters are creating the content themselves, with a team, or with the help of human contractors. If that’s not the case, a quick note on a source slide or at the bottom of the screen may be a good idea. It provides a level of transparency that your audience will see as attractive and will build trust. However, if you use AI-generated content, it’s ultimately up to you to decide whether it will hurt or help your credibility to disclose this to the audience.
If you are using AI to develop presentation design, consider these things:
1. If you can save time using AI design tools like PowerPoint Designer or Canva’s Text to Image tool, do so. This is the exciting part of this technology. It allows you to create or pull back images in minutes that it might take hours to create without AI technology. So don’t be afraid to jump in and take advantage of the time you can save. Our blog on How To Use AI in Your Presentation Design is a great place to start.
2. Again, you’ll want to consider whether or not to let your audience know you created some of your design using AI technology. In general, we aren’t as strict with visual attributions as we are with words—at least for now. We often pull stock photos and borrow via screen shots without citing the original source of the content. That’s just part of the participatory nature of the internet. So it’s safe to assume that your audience is “more okay” with you using AI for presentation design without saying so than they would be for presentation content.
However, we’d suggest offering credit to any artist, photographer, or writer with a specific style whom you mention in your AI text prompt. So if you tell Canva to create “a watercolor umbrella in the style of Morgan Harper Nichols” or “a black and white background with doors in the style of M.C. Escher,” it’s probably good practice to credit the artists whose styles you are emulating.
When it comes to AI, we are figuring it out together. Brad Smith, of Microsoft, says, “New technologies unfortunately typically bring out both the best and the worst in people.” One of our commitments is to follow the new technologies shaping presentation design. And then to share those technologies with you so that you understand how to use them for the best.
For more information on how Ethos3 can help you take your presentation to the next level, get in touch with us now.
