Can you tell if this story was written by artificial intelligence? A detection tool designed by a Collingwood resident could be the answer.
This week on People of Collingwood, we spoke to John Gillam, 39, owner of Originality AI.
Q: Where did you grow up?
A: My wife and I both grew up in this area. I grew up in Duntroon and she grew up in Collingwood. She went to Collingwood University.
Q: Where did you go after high school?
A: I attended the mechanical engineering department at McMaster University. So it took me seven years in Sarnia to do project management as an engineer.
Q: You have since started several businesses. What made you decide to try starting your own business?
A: We always wanted to return to Collingwood. At the time, I didn't think there were many opportunities from an employment standpoint, so I worked on building some of my own businesses online while I was in Sarnia, which led me back to Collingwood.
If you can spend 50 days a year at the cottage and 75 days skiing, that's a pretty good year.
We have lived in Collingwood for the past 8 years.
Q: Is your current venture, Originality AI, one of your many ventures?
A: That's one of many, but that's my main focus right now. I would say 80-90% of my time is spent on originality. He also owns Clark Pool and Spa in Collingwood and a bakery in Goderich. I also have some online business.
Q: What is originality AI?
A: It is an AI (artificial intelligence) detection tool. Identify the probability that a document was created by a human or an AI. We built an AI and trained it on millions of records of human and AI content so it can tell the difference between the two.
It started with me building a content marketing business and selling content to clients before founding Originality. We buy articles.
We weren't too happy when we found out the article was copy-pasted from ChatGPT.
We don't like it used in academia. Currently, this tool is primarily used by educational institutions investigating student cheating. The problem with its use in academia is that the rate of false positives is low (approximately 2%), even though in practice an enforceable level of detection is required.
The majority of our users are people who publish content on the internet, and we want to put some controls in place to ensure that our websites aren't compromised by writers using AI.
It was released a week before ChatGPT was released. At the time, there were other AI writing tools that were popular enough to cause challenges in the world of hiring writers.
Q: What do you think about the emergence of AI and its growing popularity?
A: I have never experienced anything that impacts so many parts of the world.
Every business is affected by this in some way. I think there are various methods of simulation. There are also scenarios that don't work out so well for humanity.
I think an optimistic scenario for AI is likely to be that it can only perceive the world's accumulated knowledge at that point in time. We have a hard time moving beyond what we know in the moment.
I think this will allow more communities to be at the forefront or cutting edge of current understanding. I think it will elevate average performers to extraordinary performers, resulting in more of humanity working at the edges of knowledge and moving humanity forward.
Or it won't work. One of two. (lol)
Q: You are working with the Georgian Bay Accelerator to deliver talks on AI. What is your best advice for someone wanting to start a business?
A: There is no substitute for hard, constant work.
AI won't solve it. There are no tricks.
I don't like advice about following your passion, but I think it's important to do something that's interesting to you and familiar with the problem you're trying to solve.
If you are interested and have a deep understanding, your chances of success increase significantly.
Q: What does the future hold for you?
A: Acquiring local businesses like Clark Pool and Spa is fun and very fulfilling.
It was a very rewarding job, so I want to work even harder.
It would probably be foolish to bet that originality was the last business I started. I'm sure there's something else.
Q: What are your hobbies outside of work?
A: I coach skiing every weekend during the winter. It is very fun.
I have three children. The reason we are coming back is to do everything Collingwood has to offer with our family. I spend as much time as possible doing activities with my family. In the winter, the emphasis is on skiing, and in the summer, the emphasis is on soccer.
Q: Is there anything you want people in Collingwood to know about you?
A: If a Collingwood business owner is interested in selling, I am always interested in discussing whether I am the ideal buyer.
I'm glad we were able to have that conversation.
In our feature 'People of Collingwood', we speak to interesting people who are from the Collingwood community or who contribute to the Collingwood community in some way, telling their own stories in their own words. I'll get it for you. This feature runs every weekend on CollingwoodToday. If you would like to nominate or introduce someone to the people of Collingwood, please contact us by email. [email protected].
