Small businesses can turn to artificial intelligence applications to quickly handle tasks like payroll management, answering phones and analyzing data.
But Sha’Kia Riggins, dean of information technology at Florida State College at Jacksonville, cautions entrepreneurs that there’s a critical need for a human to check the technology’s work. AI is quick, but Riggins says business owners run a risk in reducing staff and turning over work to AI instead.
“It’s not perfect,” she said. “This is where the human part comes from. It always has to have that human aspect of it. Part of that prompt engineering is evaluation. If you didn’t evaluate it, then it could be possibly wrong.”
To support her point, Riggins referenced news reports of law firms being reprimanded for filing AI-generated court documents containing “hallucinations,” such as inaccurate or imagined case citations. In one civil suit in California, a court-appointed special master ordered a team of lawyers to pay $31,000 for filing a flawed document after failing to verify an AI response.
But AI is a game-changer when used properly, Riggins said.
“AI is helping small business to run the tasks that would normally take them hours to do – answering emails, creating different projects, using it to literally just help them be able to do their job.”
Companies have developed apps to tackle several office chores, she said. They can be found by searching the internet using the keywords “AI agents” followed by a specific task.
Businesses needing help with a unique task can seek a solution using platforms like ChatGPT, Google AI Studio or Microsoft Copilot, to name the better-known tools.
But AI needs specific instructions to complete a task, which is where FSCJ can help.
Besides offering AI classes as electives for FSCJ students, the university holds night classes on the subject that are open to the public. Interest in AI and its potential has grown to the point that FSCJ students have formed an AI club, Riggins said.
A business person doesn’t need to be a programmer to take the course, in which instructors break down the steps of chatting with AI and designing a personalized app.
Chat is the proper term. AI will ask and answer questions to help hone the application. It is similar to the chatbots employed by some business websites to direct a user to a specific service or item to purchase.
“If it’s not right, then the last step in that process is iteration. You’re supposed to go back and iterate your prompt and make sure that it’s right and it gives you the information that you want,” she said.
“If you told AI to create a picture of a dog and it gave me back a shoe, then you need to reiterate that prompt and say, ‘No, I need an actual picture of a dog, fluffy hair,’ whatever it is that you need. You have to reiterate your prompt and make sure that you get back what you need.”
While there are academic and journalistic concerns about AI from accuracy to plagiarism or simply having AI do classwork for a student, businesses have embraced AI document creation for several office applications.
For example, AI can record, transcribe and summarize meetings, then list action items that are assigned during the session.
If MPEG, M4A, MP3 or other such video and audio files are emailed to staff, an AI application can provide a voice recording, transcript and summary of the file.
At a meeting, be sure to take your own notes as a backup. AI might not understand an important term. This is why having an actual voice recording to play back is an important feature of such apps.
“Artificial intelligence is a computer mimicking human behavior. Period, that’s it,” Riggins said.