Artificial Intelligence (AI) has dominated the public discourse for a few months now, with new innovations turning what was once science fiction into science fact. Previously, discussions about AI centered around its ability to automate manual labor like manufacturing, driving, and more. Programs like ChatGPT and DALL-E are promising to revolutionize tasks we’ve always taken as the exclusive product of human creativity.
While some might worry these new platforms will harm the livelihoods of people performing services like writing and design, these AI tools exist to make such professionals’ lives easier. By automating menial tasks such as filling out forms, creating frameworks, and generating rough drafts of basic documents, generative AI software can free people from busywork and unleash their creative and problem-solving skills.
If every creative job required nothing but stretching one’s imagination and thinking brilliant thoughts, those positions would not gain many benefits from AI. But even the most inspired fiction writer will agree their job requires extensive research, contractual and tax expertise, outlining, and other more repetitive pursuits.
More technical positions like UX or UI design, engineering, STEM research, and law all require plenty of time filling out forms, structuring documents and plans, and other tedious work that could not previously be automated. Just like AI helps machines automate manual labor to let craftspeople do their best work, AI automates the tedious parts of mental labor to help creative workers solve problems.
ChatGPT is one of the best-known new creative AI applications, a machine learning program that responds to prompts to generate writing tasks. Here are just a few things ChatGPT can do:
- Construct resumes and cover letters
- Explain complex topics in simple terms
- Write essays and articles on many different topics
- Outline a writing project, whether technical, fiction, or nonfiction
- Fill out forms and applications
- Generate, explain, and debug code
Imagine how much time writers and students could save using ChatGPT, not to do their work for them, but to write rough drafts that serve as a framework for high-quality results. By writing a thoughtful prompt with strong parameters, anyone can get ChatGPT to create a basic document that hits many of the major points required.
Refining the prompt and letting the machine learning system go through a few drafts will result in an even more polished framework. The user can then revise that framework to inject their own voice and ideas while correcting errors and other problems the AI generates. Even seeing what ChatGPT gets wrong is incredibly useful for helping humans get it right.
AI is also a wonderful tool for completing paperwork. “Fill out these forms in triplicate” is shorthand for mind-numbing office drudgery, and nobody who signs up to use their head for a living wants to waste time entering the information they already know into blank spaces. Forms and applications are important for performing work according to regulations and creating a proper paper trail, but are tedious and not the best use of a professional’s time.
AI can populate any form with the correct data within minutes while minimizing the errors that risk seeing a document delayed or rejected. With properly programmed digital forms, such mistakes become effectively impossible, making it easy for users to quickly double-check results before sending in their documentation.
The legal profession especially could benefit from harnessing AI to perform menial tasks which effectively waste time and brainpower. Attorneys are free to let AI systems fill out forms to ensure all legal procedures are followed while using their own skills to plan arguments, find precedents, and improve their cases.
Lawyers who bill by the hour have more of those hours to refine their arguments, while those who charge a fixed fee effectively make their time much more productive. Paralegals and even articling students have more time to do research and support cases if they’re not busy filling out paperwork, and for students especially this is a much better way to learn.
Ultimately it is important to remember that by helping professionals do more work, AI can also help us do more important work. Looking back at the legal profession, imagine how many more clients a public defender or immigration or civil rights attorney could take on if they never had to worry about filling out paperwork, and how much more efficient systems could function.
This is especially important because paperwork is so often more complex and difficult to navigate for cases that help the underprivileged, while departments are overworked. In the United States alone, the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security together face a backlog of over 11 million immigration cases. By using AI to fill out and process their forms, professionals on both sides of this vital issue could handle more cases and help more people.
People have a tendency to view AI as a hands-off miracle: program the software then lay back and watch it handle your work (or steal your job) Instead, AI is a tool wise professionals can use to augment their own creativity and problem-solving skills. By leveraging AI to handle the day-to-day menial tasks, we can free ourselves to put all our mental energy into being more effective at work, including when we work to help others.
