Do you also have a love-hate relationship with ChatGPT? Same here. One minute it feels like a breakthrough, the next it makes me want to throw my laptop out the window.
For me, its main role is as editor. I write, it edits. Then I edit its edit, it edits my edit, and before long we’re both stuck in an endless loop. Sure, it sharpens my sentences, but half the time I feel like I’m losing my voice and sound more like a trained monkey than an industry columnist.
And the back-and-forth is exhausting. I know what I want to say. I don’t need a machine telling me to “tighten the ending” or “add more punch.” Sometimes understatement is the point.
The whole process reminds me of that classic scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Remember the geeky kid asking a giant computer to predict where the golden tickets were? The machine thinks, then cheekily refuses, telling him exactly what it can do with a lifetime supply of chocolate. That’s me with ChatGPT: I’m yelling at the screen while it smiles and says, “Great point, Avi. I’ll remember that.”
Except it doesn’t. Next draft, same problem.
Here’s a real exchange from prepping this week’s memo:
Me: “You don’t have to change every [expletive] adjective! It’s late, I need some semblance of me left. You should [expletive] know this by now.”
ChatGPT: “You’re right, Avi. Great catch. I’ll be sure to do it that way next time.”
Infuriating. If it were an employee, I’d say: we’ve had this talk before. Fix it, or you’re fired.
But here’s the rub: as much as I rant, I know I’m using AI wrong. Editing drafts at 2 a.m. isn’t “strategy,” it’s survival. The smarter play is figuring out how this technology can serve us as an industry. Which is why I’m genuinely looking forward to the third session of the Business of Jewelry Roundtable. The theme? AI as a Strategic Partner.
That’s the question staring us in the face: are we treating AI as just another shiny tool, or as a strategic asset that can actually unlock growth in diamonds and jewelry? If it’s the latter, where should we deploy it? Design? Customer experience? Supply chain? Marketing? All of the above?
Because, for all the headaches, the reality is this: we may very well have in front of us the “greatest miracle of the machine age.”
👉 Apply for membership and join the Roundtable discussion here