Editorial: LLM AI Tools for Change Managers: Impact on Storytelling and Reflective Learning

Prick me and I bleed. This is not an AI-generated article, but an AI generated Summary.

And once we move past cyber security, intellectual ownership, and ethical-usage concerns, isn’t that the crux of most AI adoption questions: knowing what’s “real” i.e. people-generated communication versus artificial intelligence generation?

The word “artificial” is in the AI title for a reason, but with readily available and wide-spread Large Language Model (LLM) AI tools (like ChatGPT) those lines have begun to blur.

The speed of content generation has never been faster.

As a Change Management Practitioner myself, I can’t understate the convenience of popping bulleted notes into a Chat-GPT tool and have it spit out a nicely formatted email or a report from which I can simple edit.

Or recording, summarizing, and emailing for me meeting notes.

Or the image generator tools, like DALLe-3 generating unique images to attach to social media posts instead of an endless search for the right meme or paying another for an image.

Recently I had a few experiences that brought an epiphany.

That very speed of AI was short-circuiting my creative thought and writing process.

There have been times in the relentless need for speed I found myself dumping large bodies of text into an AI tool to “summarize” key points and in doing so I discovered a fundamental flaw.

I lost the stories.

I lost the emotional and rational path any person must follow to arrive where the speaker intended.

I lost the joy of the discovery journey.

I felt no empathy for the communicator.

What I had done was committed an error so foundationally basic to the human development process around learning, thinking and storytelling that the value of those communications was lost.

No skill gained. No new mindset achieved.

Take a minute and examine your own mindset when you are knowingly reading an artificially created discussion reply versus a real-person’s verbalization.

Reflect on your attitudes.

I noticed that I had stopped reading posts that were so polished “they must have been generated by AI.”

A University of Colorado Boulder Communications professor, Mathew Koschmann, postulated Organizations AS (being) Communications – instead of the more commonly held understanding that Communications is just something we do within the container labeled “organization.”

If organizations a-r-e communication then inserting no-time-spent artificial communication that has been synthesized and summarized removes the meaning and emotional significance.

It means this communication can be ignored.

And those instructions certainly don’t really need to be “followed” – the rebel “I don’t take orders from AI!” cry.

Taking this same philosophical view, when we utilize AI tools to “summarize” another’s writing, or even write a post, paper, email for us it removes the necessary “process time” to think through our thoughts, compare current state to past experiences, recall past lessons learned, and create our story.

At the very least it bypasses what modern scholars have deemed the necessary “Reflective Learning Process” – a necessary process humans must take to learn and retain new skills.

So, like the box of donuts left alone in the office breakroom, we may just have to utilize some self-discipline and retain our power of choice around when and how we utilize the now readily available LLM AI tools.

I asked an AI tool to summarize what I had just written for you – now you tell me, which gave you the time, space, and desire to synthesize your thoughts and experiences?

My initial non-AI generated article or this summary?

Which read increased empathy with me?

Summary: The article discusses the impact of AI, particularly Large Language Model (LLM) tools like ChatGPT, on communication and creativity. It highlights how using AI for content generation can speed up processes like writing emails or reports but may lead to a loss of storytelling, emotional connection, and critical thinking in communication. The author shares their realization that relying too heavily on AI can hinder creative thought and learning processes by skipping essential steps like reflection and storytelling. The article suggests that while AI tools can be convenient, it’s important to maintain control over when and how they are used to preserve the depth and value of human communication and learning experiences.