Enrico SchaeferFouning Attorney, Litigator and Ousdie Counsel - IP, Tech, TRAVERSE LEGAL, PLC · Founding Partner @ TRAVERSE LEGAL, PLC | AI, Blockchain, Social Media, Internet

Beware AI WASHING. The most dangerous scam affecting your AI Success

12 Feb 2025 · 3 min

Watch on YouTube

2:58

In this expo talk, the speaker introduces the concept of "AI washing," where vendors exaggerate AI capabilities to ride the hype wave. While AI can dramatically boost productivity, it has clear limits and is best applied to simple, repetitive tasks. The speaker identifies two main sources of frustration for professionals: feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of AI news and tools, and the time investment required to experiment with new products that often deliver little value. To combat these issues, the speaker advises a disciplined approach: concentrate on proven, versatile tools like ChatGPT, create specialized GPT assistants with clear instructions and relevant documents, organize work into project folders, and continuously refine how you interact with the AI. By staying focused and avoiding hype, professionals can harness AI’s true potential without falling victim to AI washing.

Chapters

I am at the front of the expo, which is opening up here in a little bit, but I wanted to go over a few things on some of the tracks that I attended this morning on generative AI. And the first one was really great. I posted a video on it. And that's— One of the things that they said introduced a term I had not heard before, but it's called AI washing. And AI washing is basically what vendors are doing or companies are doing, trying to position themselves around the hype that AI. So AI software companies overstating their capabilities, and I see it all the time. I see it with the big players, I see it with the small players. The reality of AI is it has achieved a certain level of competence which can definitely 10x you as a business professional using it at work, but there are limitations. There are uses that work really well with AI, and there are uses that do not work well with AI. And a lot of of them are relatively simple, straightforward things. The types of things we do every day. The types of things we take for granted. AI washing is a huge problem. And the way that I've expressed it to you in prior videos is don't get distracted by the hype. Attention is all you need. Stay focused on the top tools such as ChatGPT. Learn how to use those tools on your repetitive tasks or on the important projects that you're going to be working on over time. And then make sure you customize the project or GPT assistant specific for that purpose and learn how to interact with the tool in ways that are effective and then continually improving your effectiveness, your way of communicating with those tools. Do not be a victim of AI washing. The people who get frustrated with AI do so for 2 primary reasons. One is it just feels like an overload. There's too much. They can't keep up with it. The second is that they are so overwhelmed by trying new tools and new things and new products that are coming out that they can only scratch the surface of those products. They don't really see how they are going to be helped by those products. They see the investment of time they have to put into it just to get it to work, and it does not seem worth it, and it's not worth it. Use ChatGPT, Build GPT assistants with specific knowledge, specific instructions. Create folders, project folders that you can upload instructions and upload documents to, and focus on this one thing. Figure out how to improve your interaction with those tools, improve your