A Note on ChatGPT & AI


Interesting time to be a writer—and read that some believe AI will supposedly render my skills obsolete any day now. That’s fun.

I decided I’d rather go down with AI than entirely at its hands. So I have begun using ChatGPT and other AI tools for research—and it’s a nearly miraculous time-saver. While I would never, ever ask ChatGPT to write anything my clients hired me to write (that would be wrong, never mind boring and dystopian for me), I have played around with writing prompts to test its chops.

The caveats of its utility, in my mind, loom large:

ChatGPT doesn’t know the Three Cs of Great Writing + Fourth C of great marketing, business, and finance writing.

Phew. The writing it produces is often clear and concise (albeit susceptible to falsehoods, bias, and occasional insanity), but there is nothing clever or compelling about it. It remains generic, dull, and not tailored to a company or its specific audience. In the absence of these Cs (not to mention accuracy), its writing is incapable of being strategic and meeting goals. Let alone interesting to read. This drives that point home, poignantly: Advice column: Ask Me & ChatGPT, Is San Francisco going to be alright?

ChatGPT doesn’t cite.

In addition to the highly questionable ethics of this, it means nothing ChatGPT spits out can be taken as fact. I use ChatGPT to help me fine-tune what I should research, which makes me more efficient. I find it an excellent tool for summarizing information. But I still—and always will—rely on high-quality, reputable sources that can be fact checked and cited.

ChatGPT is a fabulist.

It’s been known to make up papers and research out of thin air. And bogus judicial decisions. Yikes, what else? I prefer honesty and integrity.

ChatGPT wants to destroy and hack things.

I do not. I wouldn’t know how to hack things even if I wanted to. And, frankly, I’d rather watch Netflix, anyway.

ChatGPT aches to be human.

I already am. So take that, ChatGPT.

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