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Vol. 41 No. 7 — September 2024

The work on Pickaxe has been going on for about a year. Its mission states, “We help small business owners personalize AI models with their own data, their own preferences, their own creative spark.” When I asked about potential concerns that some have about AI and personal information, Eck told me, “It is up to you to decide how freewheeling you want to be with your data. People have to use their own discretion.” He said Pickaxe can “inject your [particular] expertise into AI, and you can have it educate people in that regard.”

SMART FORM

I signed up for a free version of Pickaxe and was impressed by how much functionality was available to me. Free users have a limited number of credits to use every month. There are paid versions that offer more credits: As of this writing, the Gold plan is $16 per month for an annual subscription and $20 per month without it, and the Pro plan is $72 per month for an annual subscription and $89 per month without it.

When using Pickaxe, you have the option to create a Smart Form or a Chatbot or access the Automatic AI Builder. I decided to start by creating a Smart Form that could help me build a cover letter. The form prompts the user to answer three questions: What job are you applying for? What is the job description? What are some skills you want to mention in your cover letter? (See Figure 1.) I found a sample job ad I could use, filled in the required fields, and clicked Test Prompt. I was very pleased with the quality of the letter that this tool provided. I made it public, and Pickaxe displays the stats associated with its usage.

If you want to learn more about the intersection of AI and personal information, I encourage you to view the Library 2.0 presentation called “Deliberately Safeguarding Privacy and Confidentiality in the Era of Generative AI.” That being said, you can run Pickaxe’s Smart Form tool without personalizing the inputs, and it will come up with a generic letter that someone can use as an example for writing their own cover letter.

AUTOMATIC AI BUILDER

Next, I decided to use the Automatic AI Builder. I input my prompt, which focused on creating an AI tool for new-user training and onboarding. (See Figure 2 on the previous page.) I had the option of editing the prompt that was developed—called Adaptive Ace: Your Onboarding Ally—but I decided not to because it seemed so useful already. (See Figure 3.) The output is set at GPT-3.5, but you can access GPT-4.0 as a benefit of subscribing to the Gold plan.

Another consideration (besides privacy) for those looking to use AI to create materials pertaining to their job applications or training is to be truthful about the use of AI in doing so. While it is a personal decision, it might be best to add a note to let people know that the materials were created with AI.