I came to Cleveland, Ohio, for the 50th anniversary of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention. I expected the hallways to be buzzing with conversations about AI, and they were, but not in the way I’d hoped. For the first two days, the phrase I heard most from my fellow journalists was “we must protect ourselves.” In session after session, the consensus was that AI is a danger, a threat, an enemy coming to replace us.
Then I had breakfast at Betts, the restaurant in my hotel, and a single conversation with my waiter gave me another perspective on the AI revolution.
As he brought me the bill, I asked Kevin Knestrick, 49, if he used AI. Haunted by the fearful rhetoric from the convention, I expected him to either rebuff me or launch into an anti-AI tirade.
“Not really,” he replied cautiously, then paused. “Actually,” he continued, “I used it for the first time when we changed the menu. I took a picture and uploaded it to ChatGPT and asked it to copy the text and prepare a message for a colleague. It saved me so much time.”
As he relaxed, he called over a younger colleague, Jamie Sargent, 31, and he introduced me a bit later to another younger colleague of his, Dawud Hamzah, 37. “You should talk to these guys,” he said. “They use it a lot more.”
He was right. It quickly became clear that for Hamzah and Sargent, ChatGPT is a part of their daily lives. They don’t see it as a threat.
The Power Users
For Hamzah, a bartender at Betts and a youth motivational speaker who founded his own empowerment association, H.Y.P.E. (Helping You Produce Excellence), ChatGPT has effectively replaced Google.
“I use it to build solid, well-structured PowerPoint presentations for my speaking engagements with students,” he told me. But its use extends far beyond his professional life. It’s his trip planner, health advisor, and personal coach.
“I just used it for my lady’s birthday,” he said. “I said, ‘I want something relaxing that has vegan friendly foods.’ It gave me a whole itinerary, a phenomenal itinerary.” When back problems flared up, he turned to the chatbot for help. “I asked it to give me specific home workouts and mobility exercises to relieve pressure from a degenerating disc in my back. And it did.”
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