Hey, ChatGPT. Write a Post in the Style of Me
AI has been making waves for a while, but this past month has seen an explosion of interest in artificial intelligence like Lensa and ChatGPT.
Yes, I paid money to an app to mine my personal photos and create beautiful avatars of them. It was fun and Instagram, Google Photos, and so many other websites already have a big trove of my photos anyhow.
ChatGPT, on the other hand, is free (for now) and quite scary in its speed and accuracy. Just this morning, I saw several posts on LinkedIn about the dangers of the ever-improving technology, including this one from an AI System Safety Consultant:
Not long ago, I wrote about AI software Jasper (previously Jarvis) that boasted its capabilities to help writers create content faster. While I was impressed with its quick output for just about anything—marketing copy, blog posts, etc.—I was less impressed by the actual content it was spitting out. “There is no way Jasper could replace a real writer,” I thought. I was at once relieved that it couldn’t write as well as I could and that I didn’t feel compelled to spend money on a superfluous tool.
ChatGPT is way more advanced than Jasper was less than a year ago. I’ll admit that I haven’t tested Jasper lately, but why would I? ChatGPT is free and good. Too good. As Thomas Nield said in the above LinkedIn post: “This is not good folks, and it is going to be the end of social media and perhaps grassroot self-published content.”
There have been a lot of depressing developments on the work and play front for me these past few months. Elon Musk has been trying desperately to run Twitter—one of my favorite networking and social tools—into the ground. And, over Thanksgiving, my in-laws practically had an intervention with me because I was still trying to make a living writing. (“That profession is done. I can get you a customer service job calling seniors about insurance right now if you want it!” Uhhh…)
While I entertained their pleas with a “maybe,” I also held myself back from saying, “You know, I’ve followed [my husband] around the world for his career for 20 years and now I just have to take whatever job is out there instead of pursuing my own path?” I was (am still) pissed.
But today, I realize even more that they had a point. After reading a few articles about ChatGPT, I decided to put it to the test. Here are the results.
Write a 350-word essay in the style of Melanie Renzulli on the lament of how AI is going to take over my job as a writer
As a writer, I’ve always taken pride in my ability to create unique and engaging content using nothing but my own imagination and skills. But now, I find myself facing a new and formidable foe: artificial intelligence.
At first, the thought of AI taking over my job as a writer seemed like something out of a science fiction novel. But as technology has advanced, it has become increasingly clear that AI is capable of creating content that is just as good, if not better, than what human writers can produce.
One of the most impressive examples of AI-generated writing is OpenAI’s GPT-3 model, which has been trained on a vast amount of text data and can generate human-like text on a variety of topics. In fact, some have even claimed that the text generated by GPT-3 is almost indistinguishable from text written by a human.
This development is both exciting and terrifying. On the one hand, it’s amazing to see how far AI has come and the incredible things it is capable of. But on the other hand, it’s hard not to feel a sense of dread at the thought of AI taking over my job as a writer.
I know that I’m not alone in feeling this way. Many writers, myself included, are worried about the future of our profession in the face of advancing AI technology. And it’s not just writers who are feeling the effects of this shift. AI is also starting to encroach on other creative fields, such as music and art, which could potentially spell disaster for many artists and musicians.
But despite these concerns, it’s important to remember that AI is not capable of replacing human creativity. While it may be able to produce high-quality content on its own, it lacks the unique perspective and emotional depth that only humans can provide. And even though AI may be able to take over some aspects of our jobs, there will always be a need for human writers to create content that resonates with readers on a deeper level.
So while it’s natural to feel a sense of worry about the future of writing and other creative fields in the face of advancing AI technology, it’s important to remember that our creativity and emotional depth will always be valued and sought after. And as long as we continue to hone our skills and stay relevant, we will always have a place in the world of writing.
(I actually made a screen recording of the bot at work, but my computer crashed. Oh, technology! You are so incorrigible.)
So, I guess my in-laws are right. Now that I have played around with ChatGPT, I realize that I am redundant and wasting my time at this writing thing. At least ChatGPT tried to make me feel better about it all, suggesting that my “creativity and my emotional depth” are valuable.
But I know better. No one on LinkedIn seems to be interested in the creativity and emotional depth of a middle-aged female writer, even if she does have more than 30 years of cool, real-world experiences and skills to draw upon.
