Category: AI/Artificial Intelligence

Zhuzh & Secret Sauce—Thoughts Around AI We’re All Thinking (But Not Saying)

These thought threads are not going to be speculation on a dystopian future (if you haven’t read your sci-fi, time to get an AI summary of the classics) but rather a questioning. Like the quickening (the acceleration of the pace of change), the rate at which I question what happens around me is accelerating.

Does this generally happen as one achieves more life time or is it a function of our times? (—>has also thought every author/artist ever…) As our civilization fractures and re-organizes around the fourth industrial revolution, I find I’m questioning almost everything.

5 Question-Based Thought Threads Around AI

We’re all working towards that magic sauce that is the perfect consistency of workflow zhuzh and time-saving sauce. They claim AI will fix it. But I have to wonder…

1. Why do we need more tech?

Is it a function of getting older that we don’t want to change? Or rather is it that we don’t want the things that were once easy to change? Or is it just that I don’t need more to do?

As our bodies become more difficult to manage and new experiences become fewer and farther between, I have to ask what is progress? And why is progress often measured as tech? WHY does tech have such an impact on our lives and SHOULD it?

I know, I know. I’m joining a curmudgeons-R-us group.

2. How much time do I have to spend with AI? (*Spoiler* time/relationship zhuzhing from complicated to weekly…)

SOME of us use genAI quite a bit. We actually occasionally get told we must take a break (cough ChatGPT cough) because we have asked so many questions (no–not me doing this).

But how much time do we need to regularly spend with AI? (Guess what–you already spend more time than you may want to!)

Almost all tech tools we use today are driven by predictive modeling, LLMS (large language models), or even neural networks (the largest energy price tag). Not only that, tools that we have used previously have, whether we were aware or not, used AI.

I used an app to generate interesting images for projects long, long before I even wondered how that tool generated what I selected (think image filters).

But exactly how much time must I devote to this practice?

Since I love to conduct polls, I’ve got some data (wheh-hoo!) for you from the annual SEO Summit (now SEO/GEO Summit), that I hold for the MarCom department. I found that this was how often my colleagues used genAI:

Chart 1: Pie chart breaking down data for how often respondents used genAI on a daily, weekly, monthly, or other basis.

Looking at this pie chart, you can see that 47% said they actively use it once a week (that number is probably inflated to be honest) and that 15% use it daily. (Note: few of the web developers participated in this survey and none self-identified.)

If you ask how often I spend with genAI, the answer is complicated. Honestly, my usage is increasing just in the last few weeks because SEO tools I use almost daily have just released some integrated AI features. (It must be exclaimed!!!!)

And I need illustrations for things like this blog, so I’m now using genAI on a more frequent basis. My predictive gut says I’ll be using it weekly from now moving forward. That’s kind of a shocker!

Most people I talk to really enjoy the use of AI for their personal lives. They use it for compiling grocery lists and recipes, brainstorming and planning trips, and now–I’m sure–shopping. (GPT is releasing a shopping feature in their genAI tool.)

3. How healthy is it to depend on AI?

Did any of y’all read the recent article in Harvard Business Review on uses of AI? (I flocking love HBR.) They polled how people used genAI a year ago vs. how they are using it now.

I found it very insightful because the top uses changed from ideation to therapy and life organization. I do believe AI can be very useful for people who need to ruminate or just to share their thoughts with someone.

Here’s where we get into the gray space though. How much do you want the AI to remember about you? How much do we want the company that owns an AI to profit off of us?

On a more positive note, I also did conduct a poll in my own department about how colleagues used genAI, and here are the results:

Chart 2: Bar chart showing how people in the marketing and communications department currently use genAI. Most used services are brainstorming and writing and editing. Least used (for this group of respondents) were video editing and imagery creation or editing.^

I have to say that in my own experimentation, here are my favorite uses to date:

  • Summarization of large sets of written material
  • Persona generation and analysis
  • Gap analysis on webpages or other content types
  • SEO/GEO (Search engine optimization or now generative engine optimization)

Turns out genAI does have some uses! Whether or not those uses are healthy, I will leave up to you to judge. I am not a fan of its use for p*rn, but that ship sailed with the interwebz in general.

4. Who watches the watcher/AI?

In all the best dystopian novels (again–YOU SHOULD READ THE IMPORTANT SCI-FI TEXTS), AI is overseen by powerful entities or even oversees itself. These entities are depicted as either domineering or overseeing. Whether they watch overtly or covertly, the point seems to be that the function of intelligence is to watch and potentially dominate.

Why?

Is the function of the watcher culturally appointed? Or is it the way our civilization has been structured? What is the role of intelligence?

5. And finally, why didn’t they ask me?

If you are a consumer, which is everyone, and self-aware, which is a much smaller portion, you may find yourself thinking, why, in the name of all that is holy, did they not ask me? I would LOVE to give some input into HOW AI is used or even WHAT it is used for.

They say AI is about reducing repetitive processes. I could use help with these:

  • Fixing broken links
  • Scheduling meetings
  • Communicating with stakeholders
  • Creating cross-departmental reporting
  • Doing laundry
  • Doing dishes
  • Cleaning the litter boxes

Over the last 2.5 years, I have waited for AI to achieve these results, but guess what, these repetitive processes I would love to do without will probably never be replaced. Why? Because of contextual and very human reasons.

And if you have heard me complain about all this before, that means it’s ‘cause these are constant needs resulting in repetitive processes. I know. Go figure.

But it does bring me back to the question (of questions) at hand: When will technology address the problems that I actually have?

Zhuzh the Sauce

So, as you work on zhuzhing the sauce, I’d suggest you go a bit meta. When you are on brain default setting (your thought trains turning into fluffy cloud bunnies hopping here and there), try pointing them towards intelligence, products, problems, and special sauces.

Give yourself room to question. I guess that means we may be joining the quickening…

BONUS: What are the important sci-fi texts? (Since you asked…)

I just asked CoPilot (Bing genAI tool) to pull me a list of more important sci-fi texts over the last 100 years.

****

  • I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (1950): This collection of short stories introduced the famous Three Laws of Robotics and explored ethical dilemmas and human-robot relationships [1].
  • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (1968): This novel, which inspired the film Blade Runner, delves into themes of machine consciousness and empathy, questioning what it means to be human [1].
  • 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke (1968): Featuring the iconic HAL 9000, this story examines AI reliability and the potential dangers of advanced AI [1].
  • Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984): A cyberpunk classic that introduced the concept of cyberspace and AI transcendence, blurring the lines between human and machine minds [1].
  • The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (1995): This novel explores AI as an educational tool, presenting a future where interactive, AI-powered books shape young minds [1].
  • Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (2021): Focusing on an Artificial Friend named Klara, this novel explores themes of existence, spirituality, and the impact of AI on human relationships [2].

These works (and others) have shaped our understanding of AI and its potential impact on society. Do any of these titles stand out to you?

References

[1] 20 Top Sci-Fi Novels About AI: Origins and Controversies
[2] 20 Must-Read Sci-Fi Novels about AI – BOOK RIOT

*****

Okay, I think I forgot that even the thought of AI may not have existed in 1925…

Have you read any of these? And what did you think? I’ve read almost none of them (and yet I still have Thoughts about AI), and there is one, IMO, very important exclusion: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells.

While some have dismissed these amazing novellas and books about Murderbot the AI construct, as mere plot-driven pleasure-inducing fantasies, I find them much more insightful. If you are a semi-self-aware questioner in the quickening that is.

Have you spotted the questions Murderbot explores? Lemme’ know.

^Polling happened in Mar 2025. There were 34 respondents out of a 10-question survey.

^^Teaser image AI generated; fry sauce a Utah thing

AI Use: Your Thoughts & Feelings

Polling all colleagues and friends! Calling you here to serve up the results of the questionnaire you so kindly responded to about the one, nay—the many, data-slayer: artificial intelligence (AI). (And even more specifically generative AI.)

Impetus

The original impetus for this poll was a panel that I participated in at the Healthcare Internet Conference, first week of November. I knew that I was not particularly enamored of current generative AI tools, so I sought input from the many, whose opinions are often a better representation of the public-at-large rather than my own editor-at-medium professions (as in -sions that were professed).*

I also needed input as most of my own job functions are not those that AI comes in particular use for, but more about that later. Let’s break down the deets.

NOTE: Unless stated otherwise, this blog was written purely by—me—Jennifer Brass Jenkins, and is owned by—me—Jennifer Brass Jenkins. Be assured, however, that no AI was harmed in the making of it.

Questions, Answers, Predictions, & Hypotheses

The poll consisted of 10 questions (I didn’t realize how nicely that number came out). Some Qs asked for more clarity, some asked for demographic information, and most asked for open-ended answers, in order to tap y’all’s hidden genius.

Out of about 80 recipients, I received 39 responses. (YAASSS–WAY TO SHOW UP FOR THE TEAM Y’ALL!!) Though not all answers were required and thus answered by all respondents, all questions had at least 30 respondents.

The first questions were basic:

  1. Do you use AI in your work?
  2. If so, how often?

Fig 1: Pie chart showing the percentage of users who use AI tools in their current work (71.8%) vs. those who do not (28.2%).

Fig 2: Pie chart showing how often those who use generative AI apply it with answer choices of daily, weekly, monthly, as needed, and a must-I option. (Note that two people chose “Do I really have to?”, which was one of my favorite answers.)

Out of the 39, 72% said they use generative AI in their current work. Of those, 18.8% said they use it daily. I’mma’ go out on a limb here and say that I think our web developers probably use it the most, aka daily.

Read this pithy commentary by our lead developer on how he uses and values AI. (TL;DR: He loves it and uses it for troubleshooting and ideation at work and home.)

Image 1: Chat screen with lead developer Mark Thomas (at U of U Health) about his experience with new generative AI tools.

For those who have used it, but perhaps have not incorporated it into their own processes more regularly, I added the answer “as needed”. (It’s hard to work something into your workflow that you don’t regularly need :D.)

Prediction: I believe that a year from now, our answers to this poll will not be significantly different. I do think, however, that we will have better incorporated gen AI into our processes.

AI Use at U of U Health

The next question focused on AI at our institution. The question about where AI is being used allowed users to add any reply. There were three main categories into which the answers could be classed:

  1. Generative AI tool use specifically
  2. Institution services/department references (some more specific than others)
  3. I dunno’ responses

With 34 responses, here are the cited uses of AI that our respondents are aware of at U of U Health:

Generative AI

  • Photoshop (for use in image editing)
  • Utah Magazine (not sure how but with development–I think giving/donor development)
  • Video editing and advertising
  • Idea generation
  • Epic (the electronic medical record system used by the institution)
  • Writing/rewriting/refining
    • Emails
    • Interview outlines (rough drafts)
    • Podcast descriptions (rough drafts)
    • Meeting notes
    • Letters of recommendation
    • Social media posts
  • Article or book summarization for learning purposes
  • Stock image/illustration search
  • Troubleshooting (I assume in context of web development)

Institution Services/Departments

  • Radiology services/department image reading
  • Biomedical Informatics department
  • Identifying “critically ill newborns who are best candidates for rapid whole genome sequencing and using that to guide care for these newborns. We are doing this work in collaboration with Rady Children’s (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36927505/).”
  • Lung cancer predictive screening: “We have used predictive models on lung cancer risk to help improve screening for lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer deaths. We have increased the odds of screening for lung cancer at U of U Health by 5-fold (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37142092/).”

Obviously, if a respondent worked with a specific program/department/study using an AI tool, they were able to identify more specific use cases. 

Hypothesis: Many entities/programs are experimenting with the use of AI at U of U Health and this will continue for the next several years.

Time/Money Savings

The next question focused on savings in time and money. I did not structure the question here so that a respondent could choose multiple answers. Fortunately, I did add an “other” option, in which the respondents let me know of this misstep. 

Due to that, I have restructured the original data-generated poll graph to better categorize all answers:

Fig 3: Answer categories (and number of answers) of potential time or money saving uses.

Please note that the answer “Other” consists of the following:

Other

  • Information Consolidation
  • Research
  • Brainstorming
  • Email Responses
  • Social Promotion
  • Longer Term Use
  • Audio

Greatest Potential Misuses

Question 5 asked users to choose (multiple choice) what they thought the greatest potential misuse of AI could be.

Fig 4: Line chart showing most selected answers regarding the greatest potential misuses or negative effects of AI.

Tied as the most selected were these two answers:

  1. Spreading misinformation
  2. Confusing intellectual copyright

Data collection and privacy ranked as the third potential highest area of misuse.

I also inserted a more qualitative, open-answer question asking users how they felt about AI and the future of work. Many thought it was great but has unachieved potential. Some worried about keeping up with changes in AI tools and applying them to their works.

Summary: Most respondents worried less, however, about whether we should be using these tools and more about regulation, quality of work produced, and costs.

Identifying AI Use Elsewhere

For Question 7, I wanted to see if respondents could or had identified the use of AI by other entities. Out of the 30 respondents to this question, some answers were pretty generic or just no/don’t know. 

Here are some of the more in-depth answers (categorized for easier analysis).

Obvious AI Use

(How can we joint this group?)

Less Obvious & Generalized AI Use/Hearsay

Summary: These answers confirmed what we all see, or don’t see: Everyone is trying out the tool or has been using it and we may or may not be able to guess. (Unless you are as good as the person who noticed that some newsletters have no soul…I feel you.)

Best Uses for AI

Next question: What are the best uses for AI? I’ve put these answers in a graph by categorization (by use case–and note that some respondent answers identified multiple uses).

Fig 5: Answer categories (and number of answers) around best uses of AI.

Here is the full list of responses (summarized):

Research

  • Research (including time saving)
    • Social media influencer/hashtag research
  • Topic exploration

Ideation

  • Brainstorming
  • Teacher/Intern/Sounding board
  • Higher-level thinking (INTRIGUING)
  • Design

Content Creation

  • Outlines
  • Thesaurus
  • Repurposing
  • Headlines
  • Captioning
  • Persona/brand extension (specific example: deceased artist covers–INTRIGUING OR DISTURBING?)
  • Photos
  • Illustrations

Analysis: Data & Other

  • Analysis
    • User sentiment
    • Arguments/presentations
  • Error reductions in the analysis of large datasets
  • Large text set analysis
  • QA (quality assessment)
  • Summarization
  • Information display

Functionality/Toolset

  • Conduct repetitive tasks
  • Enhanced tools
  • Chatbots
  • Enhance/complete
  • Speed up tasks
  • Note-taking
  • Copyediting
  • Productivity

Summary: These responses, I believe, confirm our own experiences. (Since we all could potentially be “experts” in AI use.)

Worst Uses for AI

For this question we had 34 respondents. Again note that some respondent answers identified multiple uses. See the answers, again categorized and then the full list:

Fig 6: Answer categories (and number of answers) around worst uses of AI.

Fact-Checking, Truth, and Editing

  • Use of AI as the final source of truth
  • Data verification/fact checking
  • Final drafts
  • Fake references

Classroom Work/Learning

  • Student use for classroom work
  • Inhibits creativity or skills

Process Impedimentation

  • Continual rewrites when you aren’t getting the rewrites you want from prompts
  • As the only tool

Misinformation

  • Misleading content
  • Use on news and government platforms
  • Intentional misinformation
  • Provider notes

Replacing the Hooomans

  • Replacing human thoughts and ideas
  • Replacing human-created work with lower quality work
  • Making bread–my favorite answer! And companies in San Francisco at least are experimenting with replacing humans in food service.
  • Replacing jobs
  • Takeover of content production

Copyright Infringement

  • Generating content without thought for copyright

Respondents

The final question, again not required, asked for the main identity of each respondent primarily so we could see what disciplines were represented in our survey.

Fig 7: Respondents classified by department, program, or entity.

Note that Departments/Programs include the following:

  • OPMO: Project Management Office
  • Service Line Director (Dermatology)
  • IT
  • UUMG: University of Utah Medical Group

Thank you to all those who participated. Your input was greatly appreciated!!

The Whole Enchilada

So, that’s quite a lot to digest. 

If I were to say one thing that you should remember, it would be this: be cautious about the tools you use and what data is going where.

Note that any information you enter that is proprietary for your work, such as meeting summaries or email rough drafts, is used by open AI (such as ChatGPT) to continue training model.^

If you opt for a paid subscription model (which we all will have to eventually) and want to create something proprietary, consider the work it will take to customize this and if you might potentially switch tools (time investment vs. time the tool saves/contributes value).

In the end, nothing has really changed. It still goes back to time, money, and effort and how to make the best of the tools we have at hand.

Originally published on Pulse, the U of U Health Intranet, Dec 14, 2023

*Editor-at-large is a publishing title used in print, now often digital, publications. It refers specifically to an editor who writes on no one specific topic of specialty, but reviews trends and industry shifts.

My favorite editor-at-large of all time was ALS or Andre Leon Talley for the uninitiated. Both his perspective, as a Black American in fashion, and his self-deprecating take on fashion were unique and fantabulous.

^Source: Weighing the Open-Source, Hybrid Option for Adopting Generative AI, Harvard Business Review