Zoom, Teams, Meetups and other alternatives have revolutionised remote communication and collaboration in the modern workplace. However, with its never-ending popularity, concerns have emerged over its ability to analyse text, which I feel is more invasive than AI. Why? Because zoom and the alternatives are just accepted by all as part of everyday life, a lack of challenge can become very dangerous.

The feature to worry about is “Transcription,” which enables tracking engagement and involvement in virtual meetings. It’s an undeniably advantageous feature, helping to enhance comprehension and providing a record of discussions. However, it also poses privacy concerns, as employers can use it to evaluate employees’ performance during virtual meetings, tracking their engagement level, productivity, and attendance.

This is also the case with tools such as Otter.ai, which transcribe meetings and can provide a more in-depth analysis of what people are saying; than Zoom.

It’s an effortless jump to more textual analysis as you can feed otter.ai output into a simple program that you can get chatGTP to create for your needs. Just typing ‘create me the code to take a meeting transcript and determine how many words each person has spoken’ will get a non-programmer a python script, feed it the saved otter.ai text, and you have your answer. It’s a simple example, but it shows you the power you have at your fingertips, and so does your employer!

This can all lead quickly to a surveillance culture (even in small companies) where employees feel constantly monitored and scrutinised, potentially stifling their creativity and inhibiting their contributions. That’s if it’s not used to remove people from the companies for not being perceived as engaging and valuable.

So worry less about generative AI, such as chat GTP, which can be a tool for you to become more productive, and worry more about all those recordings since covid!

Maybe consider going into that office a bit more 🙂