Artificial Intelligence is already part of our lives in the tools and services we use every day. As AI development accelerates, how can authors and small businesses use it as leverage to expand income and opportunities? Ash Fontana gives some ideas in this interview on The AI-First Company.

In mid-2019, I shared 9 Ways That Artificial Intelligence Might Disrupt Authors and Publishing, and one of those possible disruptions concerned voice technologies, which I also wrote about in Audio for Authors. In 2020, we have seen an acceleration of AI with the release of GPT-3 for natural language processing and generation, as well as the development of ever more sophisticated voice recognition and creation. In this episode, Mark Leslie Lefebvre and I share a conversation between our Voice Doubles and our thoughts on the ramifications. You can get your own Voice Double at Descript.com. You can find Mark at MarkLeslie.ca. Mark also recorded a special episode with more of his thoughts in episode 148 of Stark Reflections. We'd love to know what you think so please leave a comment or tweet me @thecreativepenn and Mark @markleslie So, how's lockdown where you are? How are things in Canada? Mark: Lockdown has actually allowed me to discover new types of creativity in myself, where I seem to have prevented myself from writing prose. So I have the energy inside me to tell story, to want to share and amuse and entertain, and I redirected it into a different output that satisfied that part of my soul that needs to write, and now I'm back writing again. But while I was struggling, it was really good to have that outlet. Jo: I also struggled at the beginning, and I did a flurry of business activities.

Over the last decade I've been asked many times whether I think blogging will die, or will it be replaced by something else. Every time I was asked this question I replied that I believe the only way it could change is if how we consume content changes. As long as we humans like to read, listen and watch, and we use our eyes and ears to do so, I couldn't imagine anything changing. Unless technology reaches the point where we can download content directly to our brains like in the Matrix movies… which I don't see happening anytime soon! While my basic thesis remains the same – we continue to use our eyes and ears to read and listen to content – for the first time in a long time there is something on the horizon that is going to cause a fundamental shift.