We need to talk about ChatGPT. And I'm going to hold your hand when I say this.

I’ve not been a fan of AI or ChatGPT for many reason, I’ve heard ‘your job will be first to go with AI’ more times than I care to think about and, unfortunately, they aren’t wrong.

Social media and content creation is the first port of call when it comes to cost cutting, especially in industries such as bike racing but, should you really be leaning on it or are we sleepwalking into a disaster for the sake of saving money?

The latest trend of ‘create a caricature of me and my job based on everything you know about me’ doing the rounds on Instagram and Facebook is alarming when you look into exactly what they’re showing: your kids, your coffee addiction, your love for a weekend party, your ‘not so secret’ love for a sweet treat, all those things what make you…you. But it highlights something that not many people take into account, how much of your personal information does ChatGPT have access to.

According to Redact.dev, OpenAI and ChatGPT collects and stores everything you upload. Yes, everything. All your text, files, images and voice notes (yes, they have your voice, Ariel). Everything. With third party access to your information, fyi.

So why could this be a problem for social media managers and content creators, you ask?

As budgets continue to get slashed and we have to don more hats, it’s an easy option to jump on one of these trends but, you’re offering your riders likeness up to a machine with no idea what it could be used for in the future for the sake of an easy piece of content.

If you feed images and information about your riders or team into their model, you are helping it learn to make more realistic images. This makes it harder to identify the real from the fake and opens the door to a rise in deep fakes which can be catastrophic for the reputations if they are used for all the wrong reasons and, let’s face it, they will always end up being used for the wrong reasons, this is the internet after all.

The last thing you need is to be caught in the firestorm of your rider’s reputation being on the line because their likeness is being used to pedal harmful content because of AI generated fakes that are indistinguishable from the real deal.

And that’s on top of the horrific environmental damage being done to the world in order to produce this utter slop. As stated by UNEP, globally, AI-related infrastructures may soon consume six times more water than Denmark as well as one request to ChatGPT consuming 10x the electricity of a Google search.

If you want good, fun content, invest in a good graphic designer. It’s not cheap but it is so worth it. And you’re not lining the pockets of a billionaire, you’re giving someone the opportunity to pursue their passion. A win/win in my books.

So, at the end of all this, is it really worth jumping on another AI trend to not feel left out?