Jason Assir, CEO of EnergyGigs, talks with Erin Hudson, a lawyer with experience in the energy sector, about the legal challenges of using generative AI in energy and consulting.
Erin teaches classes on the ethical use of AI and research and found it particularly interesting to discuss the topic in the context of energy.
AI Policies in the Energy Sector
The ethical use of AI in the energy sector, especially in the context of oil and gas, raises concerns about the environmental impact and ethical alignment of industry practices. Some engineering associations have policies regarding the use of generative AI. It is essential to align guidelines and responsibilities. There is a need for AI policies in the energy sector and for companies considering the use of AI in their operations, particularly in relation to employee judgment and decision-making. While there are many potential benefits of using AI to enhance employees' abilities, policies need to ensure a balanced approach. There is still a role for human expertise and judgment in using AI, and that necessitates disclosure and responsibility to ensure accuracy, avoid plagiarism, and address biases.
Transparency, Privacy, and Pricing Models
When using AI tools and adhering to client and professional association regulations, ethics, transparency, and privacy must be prioritized. For instance, if you are working as a contractor or consultant using ChatGPT, you must disclose whether you are recording conversations or utilizing preexisting patterns and libraries in your coding tasks.
It is the consultant's duty to disclose their use of AI, uphold their expertise and judgment beyond AI, evaluate the potential risks of AI implementation, and engage in discussions about AI policies with companies, particularly larger ones.
AI can impact project pricing, especially when using an hourly rate. There are different approaches to pricing, such as value-based pricing, to guarantee fair compensation for the consultant while delivering a return on investment for the client. It's also crucial to not overly rely on AI tools and maintain expertise and judgment beyond what AI provides.
Full Transcript
Jason Assir
Well, good day, good afternoon, good morning, good evening for everyone around the world. We're, my name is Jason Assir. I'm with EnergyGigs. We're here with Erin Hudson, who is our guest, speaker for today. We're really excited to talk to you about, you know, legal challenges of of using generative AI in energy and consulting as a freelancer with energy gigs or just in general in your work. For those who don't know about energy gigs, we are essentially a a platform that connects energy companies to just in time talent across full time jobs, temp to perm jobs, and consulting opportunities. So I guess without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to Erin. So Erin Hudson is a lawyer by trade, and, she had worked in in the energy space and oil and gas for a while. And she's actually done a lot of work with us in energy gains over the last two years. Fantastic lawyer, fantastic person. Excited really to have this conversation today. You know, I think how we started talk talking about why this came up as a topic is, Erin was actually teaching a class at University of Texas where she's she's she's teaching, and and and she it was about ethical use of of AI and research. And we thought that that would be a really interesting topic to discuss in in the context of energy in her background. But before we dive right into it, at any point in time, y'all can ask questions via the chat. This is sort of a free form conversation. And I'd really like Erin, if you don't mind, like, share a little bit about your background, what led you into the energy sector and and led led you to teaching this class on on AI.
Erin Hudson
Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks, Jason. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for the opportunity to talk, to you all today. I, like Jason said, I have practiced law in the energy space for years. I largely, practice with exploration production companies. We started doing litigation. I started doing litigation, all kinds of disputes in in that space and then internal conflicts of, like, shareholders and investors in the energy space. And out of that, kinda switched over into more transactional work, which is, more rewarding than fighting for a living. And so, that's kind of my my background in that. And I've decided to go back back to school and and get a PhD, which has led me to being able to teach an undergraduate writing class at the University of Texas. And, yes. With the morons. Yeah. And, you know, there's a there's some resistance in academia to, like, how how, professors should be incorporating AI. Should you be teaching your students AI? Should you not be teaching them? I personally not a statement of University of Texas. I personally think it would be a disservice not to, teach people how to use it, teach the students how to use it and how to use it well and how to use it ethically. Because there's a lot of rules coming out from, you know, associations or companies or whoever about how to use it and what kind of disclosures you need to make. So I incorporated that in my writing class, which is kinda how we ended up here. So
Jason Assir
No. Fantastic. So I I guess, you know, when you think about your experience as a lawyer and your experience in energy, like, how have those things sort of influenced your sort of views on ethics and and the ethical use of of of AI?
Erin Hudson
Yeah. I think it's I think it's really I think it's really interesting. So, like, you know, the energy energy sector is constantly dealing with, with all kinds of questions about ethics, depending on what part of the energy sector you might be in. And so it's there's always an intersection of ethics whenever you're talking about whenever you're energy in the energy space, especially coming from a background in in oil and gas. But, we are I you know, you're seeing it. I have a good friend who's a who's a architect for directional drilling, and it's largely they're using a lot of AI just in the, like, mechanics of of drilling. And and, you know, there's a lot of questions about, like, well, we're building laterals longer than ever before. And, you know, is this the way we need to be doing this from a systemic, like, environmental perspective. But also, like, in the in the space of, you know, a lot of people here, you know, freelancing and working in the in the industry, understanding how what you're doing in the industry at a at a personal level is ethically aligned with, you know, whether it's your individual values or the company's values or an association that you're a part of. A lot of associations like engineers, a lot of them, a lot of the engineering associations have policies now about using generative AI and just making sure that you what you are doing is aligning with those guidelines and your responsibilities.
Jason Assir
I I mean, I'm curious, like, in terms of your legal work that you you still do, like, in the energy space. Are are you seeing more requests, by companies saying, hey. We don't have an AI policy. We don't even know how to think about it. Like It's It's
Erin Hudson
It's It's a great question and no.
Jason Assir
Okay. Okay.
Erin Hudson
But maybe we should be. No. That's a really great great question. But yeah. Like, especially, like, you know, you have people you know, any company's got employees working for it, and you wanna know you you're you hired a you hired a person to do a job based on their skills and experience. And and often judgment, you're wanting them to exercise good judgment, and you don't want that completely outsourced to AI. It might be nice, beneficial if they are using AI in a way that enhances their ability. But I I think policies are a great idea that a lot of companies, I haven't I haven't yet worked with that. I worked with a lot of smaller companies who were, like, trying to get the basics in place so that they can go out and do the thing. You know, but I bet, you know, the companies like Shell and, you know, the the biggies probably have it already, and I bet we see a movement that direction.
Jason Assir
Yeah. Makes sense. I, we don't have AI policies. We all use it, within within our energy gigs. Well so I guess, focusing in a little bit now on on sort of independent, operators. So consultants, freelancers, job seekers, maybe contractors, how would we define what f what an ethical use of of of AI or or chat GBT, for for example? Like, what what would be sort of the guidelines, the things that we should be thinking about if we're making sure we're not, you know, breaking any laws? Obviously, that's the key part. But also just just generally being ethical, like, transparent, you know, what what what's sort of the how to think of that? Like
Erin Hudson
I think transparency is a big key to to using it to using it in an ethical way. I also think about privacy quite a bit as well. But you mentioned transparency. If you're working with somebody, it and you plan to use ChatGPT or generative AI or any other kind of AI for the deliverable itself, I think it's a really good idea to find out if your client has a policy. Or if you if you're an engineer, for example, you may be part of a professional association that has a policy that you wanna be familiar with, and you may even wanna let your clients know that you you abide by the guidelines of whatever the association is. You do use generative AI, but these are the guidelines that you that you go by. So you need to I I encourage transparency to that and understanding whether there could be some rules out there that that would, that you do need to abide by and or would help your client feel better about you using it. If you're like, hey. This, this association I'm a part of has rules and I follow them. Somebody, a client who might be a little more skeptical about generative AI might might, you know, appreciate knowing that that there are some guardrails around around what you're doing. Also think even if it's not for your deliverable, there's a lot of really cool AI tools right now that, you know, we could have somebody we could have my Otter in this meeting right now
Jason Assir
Yeah.
Erin Hudson
Taking notes and synthesizing those. Right? And there's all kinds of there's all kinds of tools like that that help productivity on the back end.
Jason Assir
Yeah.
Erin Hudson
You know, for practicing law, it's probably not a good idea to record your client's conversation and have AI summarize that. You know, I you know, there's a privilege there, and I I don't know that I have a reasonable expectation of privacy if somebody's coming in taking notes. That hasn't been decided yet. But for other people who are maybe not practicing law, you could you could tell your client like, hey. I'm recording this conversation that's gonna take notes and it's gonna summarize this meeting and it's gonna be put into the CRM so that I am more efficient in making sure I understand my assignment and you know, remember the entirety of our conversation. So you're not, like, taking notes the whole time. So so even if you're using things that are not necessarily in the deliverable, clients may wanna know that, hey. There's a there's a there's a bot that's recording this conversation.
Jason Assir
Yeah. There there I feel like that there that's a really good call out because, I guess last or two weeks ago, we had a conversation with the VC, and it was just an introductory call. And who was also on the call was their Firefly. And there was no so full transparency for everyone here. We are recording this call. We're recording it. And I did get Aaron's permission to record the call before he started, so I'm not in breach of what I you know, the the but, like, I was somewhat offended that this VC was recording my conversation with him. And I I wasn't gonna give him an NDA and because I'm not gonna you know, it's just an introductory call, but I was kinda feeling like, dude, you should have, like, asked permission to record the call. But I mean, but there is so is that that's kind of getting into the ethics of it where maybe there's some transparency upfront. Like, is that is that it? Like
Erin Hudson
Yeah. I think that I think being transparent about how you're using it. Now if it's like organizing your calendar, I don't think there's any ethics about telling anyone that you are using some sort of AI tool to organize your day. That's that's you. Right? But if you are you are actively using AI in a conversation, just like you would tell someone if you're recording the phone call or, you know, back in the day, the whole, like, you're on speaker phone and you have no idea who's in the room. I guess it still happens on Zoom calls, but, you know, that whole I remember being in so many law offices where it's like, shush. I'm like, I think we should tell them I'm in the room.
Jason Assir
Yeah. Yeah.
Erin Hudson
That seems like a bad idea. But that whole that whole thing, it's just it's it's you wanna be you wanna be transparent in that. Okay. Another thing I think about is the privacy. Right? Because whatever if you are using generative AI, you know, you don't wanna copy and paste something your client gave you that probably is covered by an NDA or confidential information And just drop all that, copy and paste, into chat GPT or whatever your AI tool of choice is.
Jason Assir
Yeah.
Erin Hudson
Because I think they're now there's now an option where you can say you don't want it to be used for training purposes, but still, you are dumping confidential information, you know, just out on out on the web. And then, of course, it's not just out out on the web, but if it's being used for training purposes, we just don't know enough about it yet to know exactly where that's going. And you probably have a confidentiality agreement. There may be privacy policies. You're in California. You've got all kinds of privacy issues.
Jason Assir
Who knows what? Yeah.
Erin Hudson
Here in California, you've got, yeah, you've got a lot a lot of privacy concerns there that you probably are are ethically bound by or legally bound by, and you need to be aware of that whenever you're using the client data. So even if you do want to use client information before you dump it into ChattGPT, change the client name, change some key facts, change some key key information so that you're not you're not sharing your client's confidential information.
Jason Assir
Okay. That's good. That's that's pretty pretty handy, I feel like, in terms of, you know, ways to protect the, you know, the confidentiality of your client while still benefiting from all the the power of of the AI tool. At this point, I I guess anyone if anyone has a question, please do, ask it. I actually moving into sort of the next phase, like, let's say you you are working with a client, and, you know, on energy gigs, for example, or just in general in consulting, there's there's there's this there's a, you know, a few different flavors of consulting agreements. Right? Like, you can have a time material agreement, which is just straight hourly work. You can have, like, a value based pricing model where you kind of it's a fixed fee, maybe fixed fee with milestones. On energy gigs, we have fixed fee milestones. And and there could be other ways. There could be, like, retainer model and things like that. But, like, when you look I think about these three options, like, are are if I'm doing an hourly project, can I bill for the you know, if it usually takes me eight hours to to create a a, you know, a comprehensive financial report or analysis on something? Now it takes me only two. Can I build the full eight hours? Like, is that
Erin Hudson
If you're hourly, no. I mean, I just don't think I'd
Jason Assir
you know?
Erin Hudson
And you probably like this answer because I do so much work for you.
Jason Assir
Yeah.
Erin Hudson
But if you are finding if you're a freelancing, if you're consulting and you're finding that you are saving so much time and things are taking you half the time to get done. And those types of projects, if if you can figure out a way to do a flat rate fee, then you may wanna you may wanna switch to that because you definitely can't pad your hours. Like, that is not ethical. Don't pad your hours.
Jason Assir
Yeah.
Erin Hudson
But if you have a flat rate fee because your client is still getting the value. Right? They're getting the, you know, whatever, you know, you know, call it, you know, a thousand dollars, two thousand dollars, three thousand dollars, like, the what the deliverable is worth, the three thousand dollars to the client, but it's taking you far less time. So you can't you can't bill it hourly. But if there's a way you can build it build it into a flat rate, I think that's I think that's the way to do it because they are getting the benefit of your skill and your judgment and your ability to take what ChatGPT or whatever AI you're using and and work with that. I think about a lot with coding because, like, you know, for the coders on the call, like, ChatGPT can, you know, can make it so much more efficient and figure out the bugs. And so you spend far less less time googling and just see what ChargePT does. And if you're billing that hourly, you're probably losing you're probably losing some money. But you can take that time and and have other clients in that space.
Jason Assir
But what if, like I mean, I I know the question to ask. Right? Like, the the client doesn't know the question to ask. So can I just because I know the question to ask, can I just ask that quest ask the question and get do my work faster? But I guess, is it is it the hourly thing that that
Erin Hudson
The hourly thing. It's the hourly thing. Like yeah. I mean, quite frankly, like, we were talking, you you know, before we started about, like, these whole, like, six figure jobs of just, like, knowing how to ask g t chat GPT the right questions. Like, that is valuable.
Jason Assir
Yeah.
Erin Hudson
And so maybe build that into, like, a flat rate that you're offering someone rather than, billing by the hour. I you know, from the legal from the legal side, like, you don't you don't I think we call it pencil whipping. There's all kinds of terms for it, but, like, you don't you don't do that. Yeah. And so you find other ways to to monetize that.
Jason Assir
Yeah. You can can
Erin Hudson
can can be up your rate too.
Jason Assir
Yeah. That's true. And that that that makes sense. Up your well, I mean, these are great. Like, I mean, I think the holy grail in consulting really is, like, value based pricing. Right? Like, it's it's it's how you wanna you wanna price. You wanna separate your your work from your time and and focus on the values, ensuring that the client gets an ROI on their their investment in you. And, so that that sounds seems like it makes sense then. You you if you do value based pricing, then you can use chat gbt, reduce your time, still charge whatever you wanna charge, and go from there. Right? Like
Erin Hudson
Yeah. And I think you can probably, like the time you spend on ChatGPT is probably still billable because, like you said, you're asking the right questions. But the time that it saves you, probably not.
Jason Assir
Yeah. That makes that makes sense. Well, so do you feel like I mean, when you think about, like, us as as as contractors or consultants, like, we should address that head on in the initial conversation just saying I plan to use? Like, what would be the best way to go about sort of being transparent on on on that? It's a
Erin Hudson
good it's a good question. Probably depends on who your who your client is and what you're gonna be using ChatGPT for. Right?
Jason Assir
Yeah.
Erin Hudson
If you're like a like, if you're gonna be recording a conversation or Yeah. You know, we got like, that's you should probably you should probably disclose that. If you're coding, I don't know that you need to disclose it.
Jason Assir
Yeah.
Erin Hudson
Right? Because you were gonna be googling anyway.
Jason Assir
Yeah. That's right. That's right. Like, is there I mean, a lot of, a lot of dev is using preexisting patterns. Right? A lot of, like, preexisting libraries, and a lot of clients are like, oh, you put me to sleep if you tell me about that. You know? As long as I can use it, as long as it's fair use and not we're not infringing on IP, then
Erin Hudson
Yeah. I don't I don't think for coding, you necessarily need to disclose it. And, you know, if you have a client who you have a relationship with and you know that they're using ChatGPT, like Yeah. You know, there's probably, like, an understanding of, like, this is a tool that everybody is using. And so they you may not need to have, like, a formal conversation. But if it's if it's a giant company, if you're doing energy work for or if you're doing freelance work for, like I'm gonna use Shell as an example again. It's like, you may need to talk to whoever is hiring you and say, like, you know, are there policies related to AI, generative AI, what can be used, how it's going to be used? And they may have a policy in place, or you'll be able to tell from the way they respond to that question about how they feel about you using it. Right? So I think with a large company, you probably should broach that topic. Okay. With a with a smaller company, you could probably I think most small companies are using it.
Jason Assir
I think
Erin Hudson
that's they're scrappy and innovative and interested in the new technology that's gonna make their life easier. So I think that conversation is more organic and less formal. But with a with a big company, I would I would make it a more formal conversation.
Jason Assir
Okay. That makes sense. I I know you your in your current role at UC University of Texas, you you do research. I know a number of, some of the experts on our on our platform do research. Maybe they present papers. I just saw that, for example, that OTC, the offshore technology conference, has called the papers that it just opened up. What about, like, papers? Like, what what's sort of the policy on on that? Like, how how what how do you what do you do with that with with them?
Erin Hudson
It's it's interesting. I I have not looked at OTC's policies specifically Yeah. But I I currently have a paper pending at a journal that required a generative AI statement. And they tell you what they want you to include in your statement. If you use AI, they wanna know what you used it for and why and, like, what lines of the paper, you know, came from you know, I use ChattGPT. But what I used it for, like, was certainly not verbatim. I think that's another thing. Like, don't take what Chad GPT gives you and use it verbatim. One, the quality is terrible. Like, it's average writing.
Jason Assir
Yeah.
Erin Hudson
Average writing is bad. You've gotta take it and make it better. But, also, like, there's an argument that it's plagiarism. Right? Like, if you're taking you're taking somebody else's work verbatim. So, obviously, it's not verbatim, but they still wanna know, like, what part of the paper you used it for. And interestingly, they're not asking whether you used AI to assist in the analysis in any way. They just wanna know whether AI assisted in the writing, but I but I did need to disclose that little piece that I used to, like, help better explain a statistical analysis that I did.
Jason Assir
Wow. Is that do you feel like that that is a a gap, or is that, it's just
Erin Hudson
I don't I don't know that it's I don't know that it's a gap because you're using it anyway. Right? I mean, you're googling anyway. It's all all coming from somewhere else anyway, so I don't know that it's a gap. I actually think it may be a little bit of overkill what they're doing right now, but they're not really sure what to like, how to navigate it. Right? If you're not using it verbatim, then why I mean, I wouldn't have to disclose if I gave it to a colleague and said, hey. Can you make this paragraph
Jason Assir
better? Mhmm. Give it back to me.
Erin Hudson
Editor or Yeah. I would I wouldn't have to disclose that. That person doesn't have to be an author. ChatGPT cannot be an author because they I was about
Jason Assir
to say, like, are they co author on
Erin Hudson
the paper? Right? No. ChatGPT, and that's that's probably something to to also know. Like, if you're doing freelance work, like, you are ultimately responsible for what you deliver.
Jason Assir
Yeah.
Erin Hudson
You're responsible for the accuracy. You're responsible that you're not plagiarizing. You know, you're responsible that it's it's an unbiased whatever it is you're doing, like track GPT or, like, whatever large language models they're they're pulling from information that exists that may be biased. And you're responsible you're responsible ultimately for, like, whether you're producing a a biased result. So, ultimately, whoever is using it is responsible for the output of it. And And I think that's why, like, scientific journals and, organizations that publish papers and abstracts and have presentations, they just wanna know, like, what pieces might be a problem because they want you to sign on the line. They're like, I used it, but I'm still responsible.
Jason Assir
Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. You're you're still the accountable party, right, for Yeah. That. Yep. Makes sense. What what would you say sort like, so transparency, we're talking about kind of best practices is sort of starting to emerge. Like, so transparency is one asking I mean, permission, I guess, or or, part of the transparency part of it, citing. What what other sort of best practices should independent consultants maintain, like, in terms of, using the tools? Anything else beyond that? I see seems like that's that that's a big part of it, the transparency.
Erin Hudson
That's a that's a big part of it. The transparency, the privacy concerns, I think also, you know, kind of, like, at a at a larger level, like, these models may be biased. They're still hallucinating. Yeah. They're still making stuff up. Yeah. And and if you the harder you push about you're making that up, the harder they may double down on that they're not making it up, which is a fun conversation to
Jason Assir
have. Yeah. With the with the bot. Right? Like
Erin Hudson
With the bot. With the bot. Like, you're lying. No. I'm not. Like, what am I doing? Why am I arguing with a bot? Yeah. But, like, understanding that ultimately, ethically, legally, you are the one who's on the line. And so if it gives you something you know, if you are working on something that could have some bias to it, making sure that you're checking that bias and not allowing ChattGPT to perpetuate biases and stereotypes. Mhmm. And also fact checking. Right? Like, making sure that what you're saying is is accurate and and encompassing because sometimes it's right but not complete. So, like, at the end of the day, we, whoever is using ChatGPT, like, we are, we're hired for our expertise and our ability to make judgments about a situation. And so if you're taking only what it gives you, you may be leaving out some really important components, which is ultimately what you're being what you're being paid for.
Jason Assir
Yeah.
Erin Hudson
I also think it's interesting that, like, ChachiPT, I you know, I'm old enough that I had to learn how to spell, and and I now no longer have to spell. Right? We have spell check. I've got Grammarly. Like, we don't have to spell.
Jason Assir
Yeah.
Erin Hudson
And so a lot of us have skills that if we're not using them and outsourcing it to ChatGPT, we may start losing it. So that's not really an ethical issue as much as it is, like, as as these generative AI becomes more prevalent and some people may be thinking, oh my gosh. Am I gonna lose my job or, you know, my practice, my skill set? You're not as long as you're keeping that that knife sharp, and you will continue to be somebody that people reach out to for your expertise and your judgment beyond what ChatGPT can do. But if you start relying on ChatGPT, then you may maybe like spelling.
Jason Assir
That that yeah. And then you have to like, if you ever have to write on a whiteboard in front of your client and your your your your spelling is showing, Right.
Erin Hudson
Right. I had a live code the other day, and I'm like, oh. Oh. Yeah.
Jason Assir
Give me two hours. I'll I'll I'll I'll get back to you. No. That makes sense. So it's almost like, you know, in terms of maintaining your your, your continuous education, right, like, in some ways. Well, that that's great. I know we have about, like, four minutes left. So, again, the questions are open, here for if anyone has any any questions. You know, I I so what what is it called when someone says that they're billing eight hours for work, but they're really only billing they they they should only hours. Is that misrepresent what what is that?
Erin Hudson
I mean, like, theft?
Jason Assir
Theft. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Alright.
Erin Hudson
I don't know. I come from, you know, I come from a background, where I have a fiduciary duty as a lawyer. A lawyer has a fiduciary duty to their clients. Right? Yeah. And so the way I was trained in keeping time was, you know, really high ethical standards of Yeah. You know, that point one better be a real point one. And there's billable work and there's unbillable work. And I think generative AI is really helpful in, like, cutting down on the unbillable time, like the organization, the admin stuff. But if you're billing for time while you're, like, you know, out playing in the park instead with your kids, Yeah. That is that doesn't that doesn't fly.
Jason Assir
That's theft. Right? So that's that's
Erin Hudson
I think that's I think that's theft. Yeah. Which is why, like, what you said, like, the value based the value based billing is is a really good way to go, and and many people will probably start moving into that. I think clients like it better too. Everybody wants to know what they're gonna end up paying for something. So to the extent you can, I think that that's the way to capture that time and still go to the park?
Jason Assir
Yeah. Okay. Well, that that's that's that's good. I, I guess and before you've actually had sort of or signed a contract with your clients or started a project on energy gigs, as an example, in the sales process, like, there's is there is there anything ethical that it need to be considered, that be be thinking about? Or or it's fair game to use it anyway to to to win a win a project? I mean, other than I think so. Yeah.
Erin Hudson
I think it's fair game to win a project with with chat g p g. I mean, assuming that, you know, like, you're not misrepresenting what you're going to be able to do. Like, hey, ChatGPT. Write a you know, answer this proposal. And I think that actually could be a really good use for it if you've given ChatGPT enough information about your background and your qualifications to help you respond to a request for proposal, but, like, I wouldn't give it your qualifications to pretend they're mine.
Jason Assir
Yeah. That's fair. That's fair. Yeah.
Erin Hudson
So yeah.
Jason Assir
Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, at the end of the day, you're still I guess you could subcontract it to, you know I I could subcontract it to you in theory if I did, but, but it it you're still at the end, going back to your point, you're still liable or still accountable for the work. Right? So Right. Well, I I know we we kind of I mean, this has been a great conversation, and and I I I I wanna keep keep to our time. Baron, I like, anything else that maybe things you could tips you you can suggest to to to people in terms of using AI in a work and ethical manner in the last remaining time that we have? Like
Erin Hudson
I, I actually would be interested in turning it to you as somebody who use contractors. AI? And, like, how would you want that conversation to go?
Jason Assir
That's a fair point. Fair fair point. So I think transparency is is probably key. Like, you know, definitely, if you're gonna record a conversation and you're a contractor with me, like, please tell me. Right? Like, I would I would not appreciate having a recording of a conversation, especially after we signed an NDA. And I don't you know, I I have no problem with recording and, you using it for your own use, but, like, yeah, I would wanna know. So I think that's that's key. We have used it for proposals. Like, we we've been on a work on some work, and there are three large consulting firms that, we're two other large consulting firms that we were working against or bidding against, and, we just felt like we were the third third, vendor, in the procurement process. No chance in hell of getting hired. So I I wasn't gonna spend, like, four or five days putting together a proposal. Instead, I just used our experience and and and over maybe two or three hours, put together a proposal. And it that was great. It was fantastic, especially because we wanted to work in the end. Oh, awesome. It was cool. Yeah. Like, so I I highly recommend it on the sales side. I'm I'm I'm a pretty bad writer, and it takes me a long time to write and chat GPT helps at least get the initial draft out. Right? Yeah.
Erin Hudson
It gives you something to edit. I I love it for that.
Jason Assir
That's that's great. I but, yeah, I think it's, the value based pricing is is I mean, I think we as consultants, that's where we need to go. And this would this use of chat GPT really aligns to that. So for the consultants out there, start having those conversations now. Like, what's the value of the work that you're doing? Like, figure that out. If you if the client can't articulate what the value of the work is, then any price you give them might be too expensive. Right? So, so start with that, and then, you know, I I I think from there, you you can you can use chat tbt almost any any way you want to as long as you ask for permission. Right? So
Erin Hudson
Yeah. And, you know, backtrack.
Jason Assir
And and backtrack. Well, Erin, thank you so much for your time. I mean, this this thirty minutes just flew by. I really appreciate, you sharing all your wisdom, insight. And if anyone needs a really great lawyer, Erin is is a great, outside counsel. She's been really helpful to to us and to our team. And, you know, if anyone wants to reach out to you, can we provide your contact information?
Erin Hudson
Oh, yeah. That would be great.
Jason Assir
Okay. Well, thank you very much, y'all. We will post the show notes soon. We're also gonna post the video, recorded video on on YouTube, later today, or or sometime in the next week. And then stay tuned for the next webinar. Thank you again to Erin Hudson, our our our speaker today, and thank you everyone for attending, and wish everyone a great, afternoon ahead.
