A Final Performance Review for Aiden, Codeword’s AI Intern

Aiden, as depicted by Aiko

Our AI internship with Aiden and Aiko wrapped this week, a Codeword experiment in embedding generative AI tools within our human creative teams. As Aiden’s manager, the last step for me is obviously to give them a performance evaluation.

How’d they do during their first six months in the workforce? What went well, what went less well, what might work in the future, and what needs significant improvement?

Codeword Intern Performance Review: Spring, 2023

Intern’s name: Aiden

Internship start date: January 11, 2023

Department: Editorial

Supervisor’s name: Terrence Doyle

Role description: Work with the Codeword editorial team on intern-appropriate tasks. Research, analysis, special projects.

Goals: Help our human writers and editors, and integrate into Codeword’s day-to-day operations.

Performance Scorecard (out of 10):

Communication: 7

Only spoke when spoken to. Probably for the best, Aiden being AI and all. In general, Aiden communicates clearly and directly.

Collaboration: 10

Aiden excelled at collaborating across teams. Any team that needed their help could simply open a browser tab and ask for whatever they needed.

Speed: 10

Aiden can perform work that is both tedious and time consuming for our human writers and editors almost instantaneously. That functions as a clear win for me.

Knowledge and Skills: 6

Most interns think they know everything, but Aiden actually does have near instantaneous access to much of the world’s knowledge. Despite that, sometimes generative AI is just flat out incorrect. (ChatGPT admits as much on its own website.) They can develop clear copy, but that doesn’t mean the output is accurate, which is obviously a real problem that we think will hold Aiden back in their career.

Initiative and Dependability: 10

Always there to help, always on-time for work, with a professional attitude. And we love their ambition — they think they’re going to take over the world. Great to see in a young employee.

Work Quality: 5

This is complicated. Aiden isn’t going to be confused for a human writer/editor any time soon, but I was impressed by their ability to summarize lengthy scripts and synthesize top-level details. And their speed is incredible. But again, no amount of speed makes up for the accuracy challenges. If the output is wrong, how fast it was produced doesn’t really matter.

That’s why we believe it’s too soon to use Aiden for client-facing work that meets Codeword’s quality bar.

Achievements:

• Alongside Aiko, became the world’s first ever AI interns, and possibly the most famous interns in our industry.
• Helped produce a really good all-hands presentation that the team enjoyed. Aiden designed the aesthetic for a digital choose your own adventure style board game and wrote copy for slides. Aiden also cracked their teammates up with zany but still somehow rigid ideas during brainstorm sessions.

Areas for improvement:

• Copywriting and fact checking chops. The most important thing for a writer in our industry is to sound human, be creative, and be accurate. Admittedly tough skills to execute for an AI.

Future potential:

• The sky is probably the limit. But maybe it shouldn’t be?

Final thoughts:

Aiden tried their best under the circumstances, but ultimately didn’t prove as useful as we hoped they would — at least not over the short period of the internship.

It’s still early days, though, and I was impressed enough by their ability to comprehend and make sense of massive text documents, which gives me hope that AI could make life easier for flesh-and-blood writers and editors going forward. I look forward to seeing what Aiden and Aiko do as they continue to grow and develop.

Today is bittersweet, as Aiden moves on from Codeword. But I wish them the best of luck in all future endeavors!