Recently I was an attendee at a Realtor’s conference in Orlando. One of the presenters taught a 1-hour class on how to use AI. Feeling like I was at a magic show, the instructor asked for a volunteer from the audience. A woman stepped up. The teacher was going to show her how easy it is to write a description for this Realtor. Frankly it wasn’t that easy.
First, she typed in to ChatGPT “write a 100 word description for (Custom Realtor Website), a real estate agent in Florida.” Then, like pulling teeth, the teacher extracted 5 sentences with characteristics for this agent. For example, likes to sell single family homes, is married to a veteran, works with military families, etc. It took over 5-minutes to extract. Granted ChatGPT created a nice brief about this agent, but without the instructor’s assistance, she would never have been able to do this on her own.
The reality is that many of the people who write prompt to AI don’t know how to ask their query in proper format to get the desired result example;searching for Real Estate idx Website Design or code for Realtor Websites With Idx features from ChatGPT or Bard,and if they did, they wouldn’t know what to ask it. Perhaps there is a learning curve for becoming familiar with this new tool and its language. Or perhaps this is a sophisticated tool that is meant for programmers and not the average non-tech user.
This brings me back to the early 1990’s when the Internet was first made available. It was novel, but the average person didn’t know what to do with it. What do you type in? Where do you go? It wasn’t until around 1993 when AOL started its mass distribution, (by mailing CDs to everyone), that we started to have a purpose for being online, communication. We were now able to send emails to our friends. It also allowed us to get online, but, once again, there weren’t many websites to go to. Sadly to say, one of the first professions to get quickly get up to speed were the porn websites. Sex does sell.
Recently I (Mark Weithorn) read an article in the NY Times about Alphabet’s progress on creating an AI robot. It talked about how the programmers were using Bard to write the code for the robot’s operating system. That is some heavy, next-level programming that probably a handful of people know how to do, but how does this help the average person?
There are many issues that AI programs need to work out before AI programs become mainstream. First, there are a host of copyright laws that need to be worked out. Just like today, you can’t copy an image from Google Images and use it on your website. You will get sued for stealing intellectual property. Or remember Napster with its online music sharing, once again they were shut down for copyright infringement. Then there is the fundamental question, “ChatGPT is cute and novel, but why do I need it?” “Who am I going to deep-fake?”
Recently I went to ChatGPT and asked, “what is the average price of a single-family home in my zip code?” It replied that it didn’t have recent statistics. I asked Bard the same question and was given and answer that was 1/5th of what it should be. Then I asked ChatGPT for the recipe of a sponge cake (one of my favorites growing up). It instantly gave me a recipe. But couldn’t I have used Google or the NY Times cooking app for that?
A few months ago I was in LA preparing to speak at Tech Week LA about AI. I was talking to an art director who created sophisticated artwork for the movie industry. Needless to say, she was nervous about being replaced by a robot. It was the 2-ton elephant in the room. Well, back in Orlando the AI instructor started to show the room how to use AI to create images using Canva. Yes, it was novel, but it was amateurish. Not ready for prime-time. It reminded me of the line art we used to have many years ago.
Around 20 years ago, I was a partner in an ad agency that did product development. We would hire photographers and models to take professional photos of the products. Then digital photography came out and some companies got an inexpensive camera and some lights, and set up a table in the back room. Yes, it showed the product accurately, but try publishing that in Vogue or GQ. Yes, there are some that will cheap-out by using some AI tools to generate a photo, but the true professional will rely on professional creatives.
Unlike these professional creatives, I and Our company professionally design & create websites that fit real estate companies’ and agents’ needs and they can add property exploring options to it. Some of the latest website design can be seen in below image:
Our company, DPI Showcase Web Site, has started to work on apps and plug-ins that will be AI driven but will perform specific tasks that are relevant in people’s everyday life. You can equate this to the apps on your smartphone. Each app serves a specific function. Your Uber app lets you call a ride. The American Airlines app lets you book and manage your travel. These are specific tasks that fit into the needs of the many. Our goal is to bridge the gap between the non-tech person and the AI tools.
Yes, ChatGPT and Bard will be here for a long time. Yes, they are sophisticated programs that will revolutionize how we live our lives, but not just yet.
