Recently, it has become impossible to scroll through any social media feed without seeing opinions on ChatGPT.
ChatGPT is the future, apparently. Except, according to others, it’s not actually going to change much. It’s going to put all writers and marketing professionals out of jobs. No, wait, we’ll all still be employed, it’ll just make our work more efficient and enjoyable. It’s the beginning of a sequence of technological developments that will lead to the singularity. It’s actually not intelligent, just a “stochastic parrot,” and so won’t change daily life too much.
The number of “hot takes” people have is frankly astounding – especially considering how young this technology really is. As of mid-2023, no one can possibly know all the implications of generative AI. But everyone sure acts like they do.
Well, I’m willing to admit that I don’t know how generative AI will transform the content writing industry, or any other industry. But given its potential to impact my business, I’ve made an effort to read up on it and try to understand what place it may have in the work I do. While I don’t have all the answers, I have reached a key decision:
ChatGPT will not be a part of my business.
I have decided that it’s better, both for myself and my clients, if every word I write is exclusively from me.
First, A Few Clarifications
This is a topic a lot of people have strong opinions on, so before I continue, here are some disclaimers:
I don’t think that anyone who uses ChatGPT in their own writing is automatically doing something wrong. A lot of professional writers I trust and respect have explored using it to generate ideas or produce rough drafts. If that works for them, great. Just because it isn’t right for me doesn’t mean it can’t be right for someone else.
Similarly, I’m not writing this out of any Luddite-esque, anti-technology bent. I don’t think we need to stop progress. I don’t believe there’s anything inherently wrong or amoral about generative AI. I simply believe that new technologies need to be applied in the use cases that make the most sense for them. And, for the reasons I’ll explain below, I don’t think my business is a good use case for ChatGPT.
To Preserve Writing Quality
The primary reason I’m not be using ChatGPT in my business is simply because I’m a better writer than it is.
I can always tell when an article has been written by generative AI. AI writing bore me. My eyes slip away from the screen. My mind wanders. I have to force myself to continue.
That’s a natural result of how ChatGPT was developed. It’s trained on all other writing that exists on the internet, and while some of that writing is good and some is bad, most is just profoundly mediocre. ChatGPT analyzes all that mediocre content in order to produce word choices and sentence structures that emulate what it has read before. The result is predictable, mediocre content.
A common counter-argument is that ChatGPT will get better as time goes on, and I’m sure that’s true. But better by what standards, exactly? Better at understanding how to choose the right words, syntax, and overall structure to engage the specific audience you’re trying to reach? Or better at sounding like the average human writer?
Given what we know about the technology underpinning ChatGPT, the answer is probably the latter. I, on the other hand, am an expert on the former. As such, I will always be able to provide more value than ChatGPT, no matter how much “better” it gets.
To Preserve Accuracy
There’s an incredibly important risk to using ChatGPT that I feel isn’t acknowledged as often as it should be: it’s not factually accurate.
This is not necessarily a flaw – it’s not built to be factually accurate. It’s built to mimic human writing, a capability completely unrelated to retrieving accurate facts. As a result, there have been several reports of ChatGPT providing completely misleading or outright made-up information.
Much of the writing I do is informative content, so it needs to be factual. My clients trust me to do my research and back up all my claims with reliable data. Using ChatGPT would run the risk of betraying their trust.
I could, of course, fact check the content ChatGPT produces. But how is that any more efficient than doing my own research to start with? Ultimately, it isn’t in any way that’s meaningful.
To Preserve the Value of My Work
On a deeper level, I don’t believe using generative AI wouldn’t be fair to my clients. Generative AI is about churning out content with an assembly line-like efficiency. Some companies are interested in this, but not the companies who choose to work with me.
Instead, my clients hire me with the understanding that I will bring dedication and attention to detail to all their content. Using ChatGPT would perhaps be fine if clients were paying me for content and nothing more. But they are expecting more; they expect me to be a trusted partner and an expert in my field. They expect me to be creative, to be original, to be insightful.
If a client wants bland, serviceable content, they can use ChatGPT to make it themselves. I offer a much higher value – value that’s built on expertise, enthusiasm for our shared goals, and the kind of personal touch that only a fellow human being can offer.
The Human Touch Still Matters
These days, no technology is being hyped more than AI. But it’s important to take a step back and remember that Silicon Valley loves hyping things up. (Remember the Metaverse? NFTs?)
Generative AI may fizzle out with the next hype cycle. It may also become an entrenched part of our everyday working lives. Either way, I’m convinced it won’t make writers obsolete.
Writing is about more than producing content. It’s about communicating – one human to another – about something that matters. For that, you need someone who understands the written word, understands your audience, and understands what type of written content your audience will respond to.
I’m not using ChatGPT in my business because my value lies in being that person.
To learn more about how I provide that value, contact me today.
Nicole D'Angelo 