Should Import/Export Compliance People Use Generative AI?

Dear Import/Export Compliance Manager,

At work, we’re being strongly encouraged to use generative AI for writing e-mails, reports and such.  What’s your stance?

Petulant in Portland

Dear Petulant,

(thinks)

(thinks some more)

(takes deep breath)

We’ll start by stating that the ‘ol Import/Export Compliance Manager is not a big fan of AI/large language models (LLMs).  All of what the Import/Export Compliance Manager has seen reminds him of something a direct report taught him many moons ago: the iron triangle of manufacturing.  Simply put, when manufacturing an item, there are three factors: cost, lead time and quality.  You can have two but never all three at once. 

With generative AI, it seems to the Import/Export Compliance Manager that high quality is what is being sacrificed.  Maybe there are some spiffy data analysis cases (though that depends on how good the data being analyzed is) and maybe programmers can save time by having the program write some easy code (but not the hard stuff), but on the whole, he’s convinced the quality is lower and, as he’ll get to later in this post, not ideal. 

Now you may say, “Import/Export Compliance Manager, my writing is terrible, and AI helps make it better.”  OK, sure.  But the writing is not ‘you’.  And, at least in the Import/Export Compliance Manager’s case, he doesn’t want the thinking of whoever programmed the AI: he wants your thinking.  Your wisdom, your experience, your writing style, even if it’s not where you think it should be (perhaps because you’re thinking AI writing is the pinnacle of writing).  And how will you get to be a better creator of documentation or determiner of HTS Codes?  By doing the activity!  It’s the same thing with writing this blog post: what good would it be to have it written by a chatbot imitating the Import/Export Compliance Manager’s style?  It wouldn’t be his thoughts, but the large language model predicting what his thoughts would be!     

The large language models have, since they are programmed by humans, their own biases and, as we all know, don’t actually ‘know’ anything.  It’s all statistical probabilities of which words are associated with other words.  A human being would know immediately that glue is not something you should use to keep the cheese from sliding off your pizza, but the chatbot, alas, did not.  And just because now it ‘knows’ that glue is not suitable does not mean it has the equivalent of a human brain.

Ultimately, in import/export compliance you are being paid to think, regardless of whether you’re the one running the whole program or conducting routine tasks most of the day.  The tendency of AI seems to be to outsource your thinking.  Sure, it may reduce your ‘lead time’ of the iron triangle and thus your cost, but, in the Import/Export Compliance Manager’s opinion, the sacrifice in quality, in that what is written is not ‘you’, is just not worth it.  That applies even if AI is editing your work.  So if you absolutely must use it or you think in your case it is incredibly useful, beware of the siren call of having something be easy(ier) and letting your skills atrophy or, worse, never develop in the first place.  As former U.S. President John F. Kennedy once said, “We do not do things because they are easy but because they are hard.”  Or, as kids these days might say, get good.

P.S.  For a much better and more detailed expounding upon this subject, in the context of writing essays for college classes but still applicable to an office environment, read this 2023 blog post from Dr. Bret Devereaux.