By Dennis D. McDonald

On Linkedin recently Darrell Woodward of Prosfora Solutions Ltd asked the question,

What would be the purpose of proposal teams disclosing AI use? Does it make your proposal somehow less valid? Or is it a disclaimer of sorts?

Woodward answered as follows:

Using AI in bids is irrelevant to the outcome and it will become increasingly hard to identify where and how it was used.

I pretty much agree with Woodward’s comments, even though it may take some time to resolve whether and how the creators of LLM databases acknowledge how their content was generated. (Case in point: Scarlett Johansson.)

We have to consider the usage. What if you use an AI tool to summarize a technical approach? (See Comparing How 3 AI Tools Summarize Text: An Experiment for a discussion of summarization ). Isn't summarization different from creating a technical approach?

What if you reuse a methodology description created by a client’s former paid consultant from another proposal ("Here are the metrics we use to track performace while using project management methodology X"). Also, if you use an AI tool to summarize “someone else’s” technical approach, should you have to disclose that and the identitiy of the original author?

What if you use a tool to research Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) requirements mentioned in the RFP to help understand compliance requirements? You may not be “creating content” but you are augmenting your professional knowledge with an external resource. (This can happen if your client’s FAR expert is out sick and you need an answer today for a proposal due Friday.)

I suspect that using a tool to help with research is different from using a tool to create content, but the dividing line between the two can be fuzzy especially when deadlines loom.

How about this one: you are faced with a pile of 15 resumes that must be reformatted with executive summaries that touch on technical requirements in the RFP. (A real task I had to complete for a client once upon a time without the benefit of AI). Would it make sense not to take advantage of a tool you know that is good at accurately summarizing content?

At some point asking for diclosure of AI use may become like asking if you used a built in spreadsheet formula or -- in previous years -- asking if you used a slide rule (or going back even further, if you used an abacus).

Text copyright (c) 2024 by Dennis D. McDonald. The image at the top was created using Microsoft Image Creator using the following prompt: “Please draw a cartoon of a haggard author sitting in front of a computer who, facing an approaching deadline, is desperate to complete the writing of a long and complex document.” (If you want to see some interesting results, try pasting this prompt into a variety of image-generating AI tools and see what come out.)

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