Hello Reader,

I've had more conversations this week about AI than I think I have ever had.

At work, we're trying to figure out how to use it to help reduce time on mundane (boring) tasks like sorting survey responses and categorizing them. What would have taken me hours to do manually now just takes a few minutes - but it's not perfect. I still need to wrestle Claude to make it do what I really want it to do. I

I was in 3 meetings over the past week were we were discussing how to use AI, when to use it, and when not to. And then, a few minutes later, got a weird AI generated summary of everything we talked about. It felt totally off because the style of the writing was completely different to the regular style of the person who sent it. Like night and day different. (and not in a good way.)

We just had our oldest son over to visit, and we got into talking about AI and how disturbing it is to see people in general giving up their own thinking power to embrace whatever ChatGPT throws their way - believing everything it says because it's 'smarter than us.'

And in multiple interactions on LinkedIn over the past week, AI came up again and again. It "helps me to practice" because I don't have any real people around me I can use my English with.

"How has that been working for you?" I ask, genuinely wanting to know if they have been finding success. And EVERY SINGLE person I talked to had something similar to say: "ChatGPT only goes so far before it somehow stops being helpful. I need help from a person."

Over to you: has AI been helpful to you?

My take so far: I'm still experimenting, but overall I feel like I'm not crazy about the results.

• Text that doesn't sound like I wrote it. (Even after feeding it lots of my style of writing.)
• Plans and even whole webpages that look great, but don't really resonate with me because I didn't really do the deep work of creating them.
• Dozens and dozens of chats that have somehow been forgotten. (But in the moment of working on them, seemed to be engaging and important.). Why does that happen?

Some positives:

• Podcast transcription has been one of my happy places with AI. Because I've used the same transcription tool that is provided by my podcast hosting company for several years now, it does an amazing job of transcribing what I say in each episode - now even correctly spelling "CELPIP." Believe it or not, it took months and months and months of correcting that before it started getting it right.
• Brainstorming - sometimes AI has been helpful in helping me think up business and podcast ideas.
• Research - at work it has helped me quickly scour my city for places to take our seniors on bus outings and locating nearby well loved restaurants - saving me hours of planning time.

Overall though, I share the feelings of some of the people I talked with this week: AI has its uses, but it doesn't get you all the way. In one way or another you still need human brain power and interaction to get the results you're after.

Once again: over to you! Have you used AI to help you with your CELPIP practice? How has it been so far?

And if you're tired of working with ChatGPT to improve your speaking skills for the CELPIP, the doors to my 30 day speaking skills bootcamp close on Sunday. You can still get in and we can work together! The bootcamp is introvert friendly, is zero AI, and 100% personalized one-on-one friendly feedback from me - let's work together to get you ready for the speaking section of the CELPIP. Will you join me?​

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One of the easiest ways to improve your CELPIP speaking and writing answers is right here. It takes just seconds to use, and best of all, it's super easy to remember, but unfortunately not many people do it! Will you start being one who does?

Have a great weekend!

Aaron

PS. Because of my tech glitch, my 30 day CELPIP speaking skills bootcamp is still open, but closes on Sunday. Will you join us?​