AI Workflow Woes: 3 Frustrating Issues I've Encountered

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I got three things I want to go over with you today regarding some

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problems I've run into with AI and doing repeatable tasks or kind of

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repeatable workflows if you're trying to build standard operating procedure.

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And this has to do with me using AI to help with editing the video and audio

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versions of the podcast, Titan of Tech.

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So, uh, brief backstory.

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This is my second go at a podcast.

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I had the Business Samurai about two years ago where I did 45 to 50 episodes.

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And I was using a few of the same tools.

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I've got one new podcast platform, but I was using Descript essentially

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as a text based video editor.

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No interest in becoming a video editing person.

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Descript was super easy to use because it would come back and give you a

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transcription of your entire conversation.

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You just threw the video file into it.

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It would do the transcription automatically.

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It could detect the person that was speaking and you could give it a name.

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So if it, It goes, Hey, who is this voice?

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And I go, Hey, it's John.

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And I put my name in there and it would know it was me the rest of the time.

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That was my voice detected.

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And I could do that for however many people were a part of the conversation.

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Super cool.

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So that was obviously a pretty good time saver.

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But one of the things that was driving me nuts because as much as I

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love prepping for the conversations and having the conversations with

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everyone, I find it to be fun.

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The editing process is very time consuming.

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It's arduous.

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It's draining for me.

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Um, and unless you're somebody that's got a well, well monetized

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podcast where you've got somebody that can help you with the producing

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aspect and the posting aspect.

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Most people that are doing this are doing this themselves.

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And so when it comes to doing things like.

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Hey, I need show notes to upload with the podcast.

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I need a YouTube description, or I would like to build in the chapters.

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You're seeing this a little bit more with, with, um, some YouTube and

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with some podcasts where you've got your timestamps that are in there.

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And to do that is incredibly time consuming.

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I mean, it was great.

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I had the transcript in front of me, so it wasn't like I had to keep

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listening to a podcast because the script helped me with the transcript,

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but it was one of those things of.

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Okay, I've got a few of these to do.

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What was the ones we talked about?

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What were the key highlights?

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You know, I've got my notes from the conversation.

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I was taking notes during the conversation for follow ups, things

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of that nature, but it was still very, very time consuming, boom, jump forward

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now to, you know, 2023 and 2024.

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As I, as I'm going through this process, you've got chat GPT and also with

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the script AI tools baked in to help with this process and while it has

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been an incredible time saver and the problems I'm going to tell you about.

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You still got to be very careful with the results that you get, and

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you still, uh, are going to have to look at it with a critical eye.

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Don't just take it verbatim that it's going to come back the

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way you need it to come back.

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So let's jump into this.

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Over the past week, as I've went through the first couple, uh, and

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starting to build out how I need to go edit these, what is the information

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I need to include for YouTube?

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What's the information that I need to include for Captivate, which is

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the podcast publishing platform?

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I wanted to build a standard operating procedure, no different than I would

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have any other IT department or any other business that I work with.

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Start creating.

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For tasks that are very, very repeatable, you're not necessarily going to do this

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on your first go around or something that you're going to do once every five

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years or something like that, unless it's very involved process, but for

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something that you're going, man, we're going to have to do this, you know,

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once a week, twice a week, whatever, you know, that time is by your third

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time, you're starting to get a pattern.

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You're starting to get a rhythm.

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So one of the things that I did was just launch a word document and said,

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all right, what are the exact steps?

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What is the exact information that I want to generate?

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with the podcast and using ChatGPT and Descript.

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So, uh, the first problem that I ran into were the prompts and the process

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with ChatGPT were not repeatable.

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They were just absolutely not repeatable.

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So what do I mean by that?

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My first step was, give me, export the transcript.

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If you look at Descript, it will either, you can copy and

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paste the entire transcript.

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Uh, after it goes through the process, or you could export it to a text file.

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I have the paid version of chat GPT.

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So I was tell it to here's, uh, I had maybe a plug in for it

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and it was attached the file.

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Now give me some good hooks as a YouTube expert like Mr Beast.

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And what would happen was.

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It would come back and tell me it couldn't read the file, or it couldn't,

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uh, the copy and paste that I did was too long, and I found that to be crazy

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because I had just done it two other times, uh, with two other, uh, different

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videos in a, you know, obviously starting a new, uh, conversation.

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And with zero issues with this, but on my third one, as I'm starting

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to actually build a workflow with this, it doesn't work.

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So that took a little bit of brute force to go through this.

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Maybe by the third time it would work.

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Maybe by the fifth time it'll work.

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I would just have to keep trying over and over and over again or start

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a new conversation to keep trying.

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And eventually it worked, which I found to be crazy that it was

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either coming back and telling me it couldn't read the file or that the.

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Text was too long.

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If I decided just to try to copy and paste, so that was one of the things

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with the prompts not being repeatable.

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Also, the results that you got were not repeatable.

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So I had the first few times I did this, you know, obviously you've got

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your, your conversations are saved on the left hand column and chat

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GPT that you can go back and review.

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So the first, the first couple of times I did this, the results were fantastic.

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Okay.

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The summaries were absolutely on point.

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The time stamps look good.

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Uh, the key, the key highlights from each of the, the, the main sections

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where it was like, Hey man, this was a key, you know, key highlight one, key

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highlight two, key highlight three.

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Um, for those conversations, I knew we're on point.

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Um, and when I would use that exact same prompt, I copy and pasted.

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That same prompt that I used with a new workflow, it would come back with garbage.

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Uh, it, it just wouldn't, it wouldn't work.

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It would come back with different formats for some of the stuff.

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And it was just like, this is, this is kind of crazy, um, that I can't just

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use the same prompt over and over and over again and get repeated results.

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Even though the first two came back.

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And we're pretty similar, similar enough where I didn't

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know too much of the difference.

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Why now is the third one doing something different?

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So I found that to be a little crazy.

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So after I started running into a little bit of those headaches with ChatGPT itself

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on the, uh, I think the third and fourth podcast, uh, and video that I was editing,

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I said, let me try Descript's tools.

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So no surprise now.

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We've got a situation where every software tool under the sun is doing some sort

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of AI into it, whether they're building their own and turn to the platform or

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they're calling back using an API with a chat GPT and kind of baking it in.

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So it looks kind of seamless, you know, they're trying to build their own.

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Chat, quote unquote versions with inside their tools that are very specific

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to the workflow of that software.

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So if you go into the script and they've got an action bar, and it's the 1 of the

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drop downs is actually called ask a I.

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And so under ask a I.

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You can tell it to add chapters, you can say, summarize, suggest

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titles, social posts, blog posts.

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So I went through and I said, Hey, give me social posts.

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Like I want to use this and I have used this already for like LinkedIn or for

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Instagram or something along that line.

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And I'm like, Hey, these are, these are pretty good, you know, summaries.

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Maybe instead of using chat GPT, I'll, I'll start using Descripts.

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So then I went and said, all right, give me a summary.

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It was either give me a summary, give me show notes, doesn't matter, like similar

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in vain instead of actually giving me the results of of the summary of what

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the conversation was about, it would come back and give me a summary of what the A.

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I.

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Is supposed to do on the back end to actually create a summary and it did

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this multiple times in a row and it was just one of those things like it didn't

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know how to interpret its own command.

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And these weren't things that I modified.

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I know you can modify the command.

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You can type your own.

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You don't have to use their pre baked ones, um, that they've built in there.

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But I said, let me use what they've created themselves.

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I know it's in a beta version, but still.

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So I would just click the button.

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Whatever it came back with is their preferred prompt.

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I would use it.

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And even it was doing something that was a little bit different each time.

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And that was from the software makers themselves.

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So, after I get through all this, I start force feeding, uh, force feeding,

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uh, forcing my way through, some of these issues and basically just doing

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it over and over and over again until I got a result that I was looking for.

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Unless it was a situation where it, you know, it was just, uh.

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You know, it's pretty close.

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You can't take the results exactly.

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You've got to go tweak some of the stuff, depending on what

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you're asking for it to get back.

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, and then it became a situation of getting a prompt and getting

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what looked to be good results.

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And this is the third problem with this.

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But it would pick the wrong topic is like the key.

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The primary driver of a conversation I had this happen on two different occasions

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for the same conversation that I had ironically enough about project management

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AI, where we had talked about something that was maybe 30 or 60 seconds toward

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the very, very end of the conversation.

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And when I said, go give me a summary, and this was in a chat, I

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believe it was picking that little 30 or 60 second clip out of an hour

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long conversation and making it.

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The priority it was making it.

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If you looked at the summary, you would have thought that's the whole thing

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that we talked about for an hour versus.

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Quite frankly, something that shouldn't have even made the summary, maybe

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it would have made the chapter as being its own little chapter, but

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nothing that would have made a summary of anything that we talked about.

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So, again, you've got to verify the results of these things again.

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This has been way, way faster, but not as smooth as I hoped it would be, um,

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not as something where I don't know if I need to go take the good results.

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I want it that I have gotten in some of the other ones.

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Instead of just using that same prompt.

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Then start building that prompt out even more detailed and say, I want you

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to give me the, the, the show notes, but I want it in this format with these

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key highlights to make it more match.

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Maybe that will help.

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I have to spend some more time doing that, but it definitely wasn't just because

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I got good results this one time that I'll get a good results the next time.

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So, again, the 3 problems I had where the prompts were not repeatable,

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sometimes the, the built in things within the software themselves

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that were supposed to be specific.

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To video editing were giving me weird like their instructions were

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just being repeated and I have to do that over and over again and

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others were if you had long files.

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Uh, long conversations, it would just pick up a thread of something very minor

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and blow it up into something super big and make the whole summary about that.

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And so the reason I bring this up is I know there are a lot of people that

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are using, , AI, whether it's chat GPT, you're building your own, , language

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models internally to sit there and help with proposal writing, writing grants.

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, maybe building your own workflows that you still have to verify

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the results that you get.

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Um, I do know when it comes to, the prompt writing when it comes to creating

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images such as mid journey or dolly that just because I used a prompt one

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time and got pretty cool results by copying pasted the same one, it's going

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to give me something totally different.

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I think what shocked me or not necessarily shocked me, but I surprised a little bit.

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Was I was feeding chat GPT a lot of the information for it to work itself

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off of that, you know, I'm giving it this gigantic transcript of information

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already to base the results off of, and it would just give me many, many

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different results, um, in different formats or even just the wrong stuff.

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So always verify use this stuff.

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Be cautious to make sure that you're not posting inaccurate information and.

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Okay.

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Enjoy have the have the time savings that are out there with these tools

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that were not there from before, but you may have to do it 456 times.