Welcome to ‘The Human Side of AI,’ our blog series exploring what AI truly means for creativity, ethics, sustainability, and the future of human work. This series cuts through the hype to ask deeper questions about how technology impacts us all. You can find other posts in this series by clicking the The Human Side of AI tag below. This is the first in the series.
By Erin Beattie, Founder and CCO, Engage and Empower Consulting
Lately, I’ve been in conversations where people admit they’re exhausted by the constant talk about AI, and believe me, I get it.
The headlines are making sweeping claims. AI is coming for our jobs. It will write everything for us and change everything overnight. And if you’re not using it, you’re already behind.
However, as someone working in communications, strategy, and systems, I have also seen a different side of the story. The truth is, AI can be incredibly useful, but not in the way the hype suggests. For those of us in creative, academic, and human-centred fields, the conversation needs to go deeper, especially around ethics, creativity, and trust.
AI is Overpromised and People Are Tired
The hype around AI has been relentless. For months, people have been told AI can write blogs, handle marketing, and eliminate entire jobs. But the reality is more nuanced.
Victoria Duncan, a communications and change management professional, shared on LinkedIn: “We were told it would write for us, but no one wants to read AI writing, and no one telling us this understood what a writer actually does.”
She’s right. Tools like ChatGPT can produce text quickly, but the results often lack depth, heart, and voice. McKinsey’s 2023 State of AI report confirms this reality, showing that only three percent of companies have adopted AI for content generation at scale, while most use it for narrow, specific tasks, such as data analysis or chatbots. As I shared in The Globe and Mail, “many women and equity-seeking professionals are not lagging behind, we’re pausing long enough to ask better questions.”
Job Loss vs. Reality
Despite headlines warning of AI replacing human workers, the data suggest otherwise. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report predicts that while AI will transform roles, it’s unlikely to eliminate large swaths of professional jobs outright. Instead, it’ll likely augment work, shifting how tasks get done rather than who does them.
Yet the fear is real, and it has consequences. As Duncan noted, companies are preemptively cutting jobs, not because AI has replaced those roles, but because they anticipate that it might one day. This disconnect between AI’s hype and its actual capabilities creates significant uncertainty for professionals, particularly in communications, marketing, and creative fields.
The Creative Professions: Plagiarism, Copyright, and Ethics
Nowhere is this tension more obvious than in creative and academic work. Writers, artists, and researchers worry deeply about plagiarism and copyright violations.
Adrienne Dyer, an artist and writer, shared: “As an artist, I see it as plagiarism and art theft on a grand scale.”
She is not alone. The Authors Guild warns that AI systems are trained on massive datasets that include copyrighted books, articles, artwork, and other creative works, often without the permission of the copyright holders.
In academia, faculty are increasingly battling AI-driven plagiarism. A survey from Inside Higher Ed found that 57 percent of faculty had caught students submitting AI-generated writing as their own. Nature reports that researchers are alarmed by AI’s capacity to generate plausible but fabricated research abstracts, threatening scientific integrity.
This isn’t just an academic problem. It cuts to the heart of what creativity and intellectual property mean. If AI is trained on millions of creative works without consent, what does that mean for originality, fairness, and the livelihoods of artists and writers?
AI as a Thought Partner, Not a Replacement
Despite these concerns, there’s another side to AI worth exploring. Many professionals, including myself, have found real value in AI when it is used as a thought partner, rather than a replacement.
As I shared in one of my LinkedIn replies: “As someone with ADHD, this is huge for me. Having an always-available tool to help organize thoughts, explore ideas, or tackle repetitive tasks has been incredibly helpful in managing focus and energy.”
This aligns with findings from OpenAI [PDF], which reports that most users rely on AI for brainstorming, summarization, and support rather than fully outsourcing creative or strategic tasks.
Discernment is Not Falling Behind
I have heard some suggest that women’s hesitation around AI means we are falling behind. I strongly disagree.
Lynne Coles, a communications coach and leader, put it perfectly: “That pause isn’t fear. It’s discernment. And in the right conditions, discernment becomes design.”
Women, as well as many professionals of all genders, are asking tough questions about AI’s ethics, environmental impact, bias, and long-term consequences. That’s not resistance; it’s leadership.
And we’re not alone. On LinkedIn and in real-life conversations, I keep hearing the same themes:
“This tech is moving too fast.”
“We weren’t part of its design.”
“We’re being asked to trust something that hasn’t earned it.”
Because adopting a tool that’s still evolving requires caution, curiosity, and, above all, clarity about what we stand for and what we won’t compromise on.
Let’s Keep Talking
AI isn’t going away, but neither are our values.
For those of us in creative, academic, and human-centred fields, the real challenge is figuring out how to use AI thoughtfully, where it can help us do our work better, and where we must draw the line to protect ethics, creativity, and human connection.
Are you feeling AI fatigue too? Or have you found ways AI truly helps in your work? Let’s keep this conversation going.
This post is part of The Human Side of AI. Explore more insights on creativity, ethics, sustainability, and how AI is reshaping our world.
References
McKinsey & Company. (2023). The State of AI in 2023.
Authors Guild. (2023). The Authors Guild on AI and Copyright.
The Globe and Mail (2025). Why women’s reluctance to embrace AI could be a career killer.
Inside Higher Ed. (2023). Faculty Face New Front in Cheating: Generative AI.
Nature. (2023). How AI Tools Are Transforming and Testing Science.
OpenAI. (2023). AI and Productivity. [PDF]
Harvard Business Review. (2023). AI Won’t Replace Creativity, but It Will Transform Creative Work.
World Economic Forum. (2023). Future of Jobs Report.
