Sandi L Boucher (Red Thunderbolt), an Indigenous storyteller from Seine River First Nation, delivers a personal monologue rejecting the use of AI to write her emails, blogs, or social posts. She argues that companies using AI treat correspondence as a checkbox task rather than a relationship-building practice, which conflicts with her core values of authenticity and bravery and echoes Indigenous concerns about losing voice to automation. She invites viewers to reflect and respond.
Chapters
So to be Red Lightning Bolt blunt here, are you into AI? Are you into using it for your texting and your emails? And if you are, could you please tell me because then I won't waste my time building a bridge. Let's talk about it. Hi everybody, my name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine River First Nation in Treaty 3 Territory in Northern Northern Ontario. And once again I'm talking about AI. Largely because of the huge response to the blog post I wrote about AI a while ago and how to my world it stand stood for Aboriginal Assault insult or or Indigenous AI. Right, Assault Indigenous. That's what it was. So as you can well imagine, because of the industry I'm in and I do have an email list and I do email marketing, obviously I'm having people reach out to me and promoting using AI to create my blog posts, to create my emails to you, to create my social media offerings. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, that is never going to happen. As an indigenous woman who didn't have a voice for so many years, I sure as heck is not. I'm not giving it up now and I'm definitely not giving it up to a robot. But I realized recently because talking to other business people, lots of them are jumping on AI because it can automate processes which means they can do more in a day or they can do it for less cost, probably one less staff person, that kind of stuff. And I realized that these companies sharing with me that they love AI and they are definitely using it to do their email marketing or whatever. That made me realize that that company looks at corresponding with me and the people on their email list like a to do task. This is something they have to get off their list, they have to complete by the end of the day. There's no authenticity there. There's no relationship building. It's just check I did it. Authenticity and bravery are my two core values. Everything I do, every speech, seminar, workshop, email I respond to someone's question is rooted in in authenticity. I am okay with sending out an email that has a typo in it. Guess what? I'm human. I'm not looking for perfection. I'm looking for authenticity. And I'm going to be authentic with you. Especially if we're working on cross cultural communications. Confusing enough without being deceitful. I don't treat the people on my list like a to do. I don't treat any of my relationships like something I have to do. And if I did. I don't deserve those relationships. So when a company I work with shares that with me, well, now I know that this is not someone I'm going to put in a lot of time and effort building a relationship with because they're not going to do that for me. They're not meeting me in the middle of the bridge. They're kind of hoping I build the whole dang bridge. That's not a relationship. That's a power indifference. I'm indigenous. I've dealt with this my entire flipping life. I'm not signing up for more of it. Does that make sense? Like. Like if someone admitted to you that they really don't care about all those emails they get, does it make you wonder if they care about yours? So I appreciate the honesty, the honesty that they use, AI because then I know there is no authenticity in the email I get from them. I'm just a checkbox, and that's not a game I'm gonna play. I hope that made sense to you. I hope that got you thinking. As always. What did you think of this week's emails? Let me know. As always, don't forget to subscribe. I hope you have a phenomenal weekend and. And I'll see you next week. I love you. Take care. Bye. Bye.
