A Fresh Take on Using AI for Speech Writing
Being tasked as the best man at your friend’s wedding can be both exciting and nerve-wracking. One of the most significant challenges is delivering a memorable speech that captures the essence of the couple’s love and celebrates their special day. In today’s digital age, many individuals are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) for assistance, raising questions about authenticity and emotional connection. This article explores the concept of using AI for speech writing and delves into the advantages and potential drawbacks of this approach. Let’s dive in!
The Rise of AI in Creative and Emotional Tasks
AI-powered solutions have become increasingly popular for completing onerous creative or emotional tasks, making them more manageable and less time-consuming. From digital Cyrano services helping tongue-tied individuals craft engaging first lines for potential dates to tireless Scheherazades producing endless bedtime stories for exhausted parents, AI has revolutionized the way we express ourselves.
Microsoft’s introduction of AI Copilot products demonstrates how AI can play a role in significant milestones. For example, a mother using AI software to generate a speech for her daughter’s high school graduation showcases the potential of technology in assisting with emotional labor.
Utilizing AI for Wedding Speeches
When it comes to wedding speeches, there are various ways to incorporate AI, allowing users to strike the right balance between personalization and convenience. The options range from seeking writing tips and quick reviews from AI-driven platforms like ChatGPT to generating a draft that can be customized according to the speaker’s preferences.
Platforms like ToastWiz and wedding-planning apps like Joy have developed tools to enable users to input their stories and feelings, generating three unique results for a reasonable fee. These innovations allow individuals to put their emotions on paper in a fun and creative way, unleashing the power of AI to enhance wedding-related words.
While AI-generated speech writing is a relatively new commercial offering, the concept of outsourcing difficult human expression tasks is not. Ghostwriters have long been utilized for wedding speeches, with providers discreetly helping individuals overcome speech-writing challenges. Additionally, the practice of using professionally crafted greeting cards instead of composing personal messages has faced criticism for potentially undermining genuine emotional connections.
The Emotional Labor Frontier
A concept coined by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild, the “commodity frontier” represents the threshold beyond which activities are considered too personal to pay for. This boundary exists even when AI-powered products are temporarily free but requires constant reevaluation with the advent of new technologies.
AI has already breached this fuzzy frontier, inviting discussions about when and where automated tools are appropriate. Criticisms have emerged when AI, such as ChatGPT, was utilized to generate condolence emails or replace genuine human empathy. It’s crucial to navigate the fine line between convenience and authenticity, especially when it comes to vital emotional experiences like delivering a wedding speech.
Authenticity and Emotional Expression
The decision to outsource speech writing raises questions about the separation of intention from expression and emotions from behavior. It is often argued that the cue provided by the speaker forms the essential emotional ingredients utilized by AI models to produce the final product. Advocates emphasize that the intent behind the AI-generated text is what truly matters.
However, expression, including linguistic expression, may have a more profound impact on our emotional lives than we realize. Psychological experiments suggest that our words and actions shape our emotions, with examples like forcing a smile to induce happiness. Linguistic expression may not be a mere afterthought but a vital component in connecting with our inner states and conveying authenticity.
Guarding Against Emotional Atrophy
While AI can undoubtedly aid in crafting an eloquent speech, it is essential to consider the implications of relying too heavily on technology for emotional expression. Outsourcing speech writing may contribute to emotional atrophy, gradually diminishing one’s ability to genuinely inhabit and modulate their inner states. The example of using AI “tone filters” to soften angry rants highlights the potential risk of losing touch with one’s true emotions.
Final Thoughts
The rise of AI in creative and emotional tasks, including speech writing, provides exciting opportunities for individuals seeking assistance in expressing themselves eloquently. While AI-powered tools can certainly streamline the process and result in impressive speeches, it’s crucial to strike a balance between convenience and authenticity.
Authentic emotional expression encompasses intention, choice, and the ability to genuinely connect with one’s own emotions. While AI can act as a vehicle, it’s essential to preserve our capacity for authentic emotional experiences and avoid over-reliance on technology.
Considering all the possibilities and implications, the use of AI in speech writing can be a valuable tool when approached mindfully. By combining our unique thoughts and emotions with AI assistance, we can create speeches that capture the essence of the occasion while maintaining a personal touch.
In conclusion, leveraging AI for speech writing has its advantages and potential pitfalls. While AI-powered platforms and tools can assist in generating compelling wedding speeches, it is important not to lose sight of the authenticity and emotional connection that make these moments truly special. By finding the right balance between leveraging technology and infusing personal experiences, one can create a memorable speech that celebrates the couple’s love and reflects the speaker’s genuine emotions. So, whether you choose to seek AI assistance or craft the speech entirely on your own, remember that the ultimate goal is to convey heartfelt messages that resonate with everyone present on this joyous occasion.
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“I’m the best man at my friend’s wedding this summer, and I’m dreading the speech. I have absolutely no idea what to say. Do I have to get an AI to help me? Or would that make me the worst man?
-Speechless
dear lost,
You’re certainly not alone in realizing that some onerous creative or emotional tasks can be completed relatively painlessly with AI. The same thought has undoubtedly occurred to the tongue-tied Tinder user who discovers that he can hire a digital Cyrano to write his first lines for a potential date; or to the exhausted mother who recognizes that she has at her fingertips a tireless Scheherazade capable of producing an endless scroll of bedtime stories for her children; or the overworked son who realizes that she can generate, in seconds, a personalized poem for her father’s retirement party.
Creatively expressing our feelings to others is time consuming, unrewarding, and emotionally draining; That is, in any case, the implicit message in some of the long-language marketing models. When Microsoft, for example, introduced its AI Copilot products in March, it envisioned a mother using the software to generate a speech for her daughter’s high school graduation.
There are a number of ways you can use an LLM to produce a moving toast, ranging from the least intrusive (asking ChatGPT for writing tips or a quick review) to the most practical (generating a draft of the speech, which you can then customize). New sites like ToastWiz have created tools in addition to GPT-4 that allow you to plug in “your stories and feelings” and generate three unique results for $30. Meanwhile, wedding-planning apps like Joy have incorporated AI that promises to help users with their “toughest wedding-related words.” The feature can produce toasts, or even votesin the style of Shakespeare or Rumi, and aims to help users “put their emotions on paper in a fun and creative way.”
These are not the first commercial products that promise to delocalize the difficult work of human expression, or what is increasingly called “emotional labor.” Long before the recent rise of AI, people were turning to human ghostwriters to write wedding speeches. (“Toast Whisperers,” as He New York Times noticed in 2015, they were a hidden service that many customers were too embarrassed to admit they paid for). And I imagine that you, like many people, have sent greeting cards for years that use the words of a professional writer to articulate what are supposed to be your own thoughts and emotions. This practice, of course, was not without controversy and criticism. Hallmark’s first slogan, introduced in 1944, was “When you care enough to send the best,” a linguistic sleight of hand that inverted the most common criticism of commercial greeting cards: trusting the words of professionals was , in fact, evidence that you didn’t care enough to speak from your heart.
These products have long been approaching what sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild calls the “commodity frontier,” the threshold of activities we consider “too personal to pay for.” It is a perimeter that exists even when the products we contract are (for the moment) free, and the arrival of new technologies requires its constant renegotiation. In the case of AI, there have already been some breaches on this still fuzzy frontier. When Vanderbilt University enlisted ChatGPT to generate an email offering condolences to the victims of the Michigan mass shooting, the school was criticized for using automated tools for a gesture that demanded, as one student put it, “human empathy genuine, not a robot.”
Writing a wedding speech seems to require a similar emotional commitment. But you may have reasoned that intent and choice—“It’s the thought!”—are what matter in these situations. You are, after all, the one who provides the model with the essential, if crude, emotional ingredients to produce the final product. In conversations about AI-generated text, the cue is often referred to as the logos, the spiritual breath of human authenticity that animates synthetic production (dismissed as mechanical “words”) with life and meaning. Just as the computer was, for Steve Jobs, a “bicycle for the mind”, so language generation tools could be considered as the vehicle that transports the spirit of our emotions from its point of origin to the desired destination.
But I’m not sure it’s that easy to separate intention from expression or emotions from behavior. Some psychological experiments have shown that it is our words and actions that allow us to experience emotions, and not the other way around, like the famous example of how forcing yourself to smile can induce a feeling of happiness. Expression, including linguistic expression, may not be a mere afterthought in our emotional life, but rather the whole point. If that’s true, then the decision to outsource your speech writing could contribute to a kind of emotional atrophy, a gradual loss of the ability to truly inhabit, or modulate, your inner states. A podcaster recently bragged that a friend of his who struggles with anger management uses AI “tone filters” when communicating with people who trigger his temper, feeding ChatGPT angry rants and asking the model to rewrite them.” in a kinder way.”
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