GREENFIELD — Attendees of the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce’s “AIming for the Future Chamber Breakfast” on Friday got a crash course in how artificial intelligence can benefit businesses, and the pros and cons of AI as technology evolves.

The breakfast, held in Greenfield Community College’s Cohn Family Dining Commons, featured speakers from the GCC Artificial Intelligence Innovators Club, and keynote speaker Thomas Bernardin, who serves as executive director of the Center for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, and senior director of research computing and emerging technology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The speakers offered their experiences with and perspectives on AI and how it can be a tool to ease operations at local businesses, while also offering an introduction to AI for those who are new to the concept.

“My hope for you today is that you walk away from this breakfast feeling more informed about AI and where the future of technology is headed, better equipped to kind of explore AI and how it has already integrated itself into your everyday work, and then also be able to identify AI and protect yourselves against misinformation,” said Franklin County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jessye Deane.

Beginning the AI discussion was the GCC Artificial Intelligence Innovators Club, whose presentation was created using AI. Club founder and President Ernie Royer gave a description of business owners who are “AI-savvy” versus “AI-dependent,” noting that AI-savvy professionals are people who are using AI as a tool, not a crutch.

The club’s Business Integration Officer Cody Wilson and Public Relations Officer Casey Aubrey explained some of the AI options that exist, including ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Grammarly as options for businesses looking to use large language models, or LLMs. There are also small language models like Notebook LM that only use data that the user provides.

The keynote speaker, Bernardin, took a broader approach to AI, speaking to the audience about the pervasiveness of the technology and the impact of such a tool.

“We’re all trying to figure this out,” he said, “and we are all in the same place of understanding what’s going on.”

His method of normalizing and contextualizing AI came in the form of discussing and using an AI chatbot he created for UMass Amherst; providing some history on how AI has evolved into a tool used in data, social media and marketing that can be manipulative; and presenting a knowledge-is-power approach to the way AI has taken on an emotional tone in some cases.

“I think the best way to be on the lookout for those things is to know about them, have media literacy, and then start trying and playing and using the models,” Bernardin said.

At the end of the breakfast, Deane floated the idea of having a future meeting for local businesses to share what AI they’re using or exploring.

Erin-Leigh Hoffman can be reached at ehoffman@recorder.com or 413-930-4231.