ChatGPT is a calculator, not a creator. It helps get to a better answer if you’re not good at writing or coding. But it won’t tell you what to write or code.
Over the last few weeks, there’s been a lot of chatter about ChatGPT, a writing tool built in OpenAI. So much noise, in fact, that everyone from CNN, the NYT, Forbes, the Atlantic, the , the Guardian, BBC, TechCrunch, CNet, and approximately a half billion techbruhs on YouTube had to sound off on it. All in the last two weeks.
The opinions range from incredulous to breathless to skeptical — albeit carefully so. Nobody really knows what the next few weeks will bring, and therefore nobody is willing to declare ChatGPT entirely one thing or another.
On my part, I think it’s important to remember that computer-based writing existed long before this moment. According to one of my friends who was there at the time, “Microsoft fully replaced all of its journalists for MSN with AI in 2020.” Furthermore, automated journalism has been in play since at least 2017.
A difference (perhaps THE difference) with what’s happening now is that — while earlier iterations have been… limited (and that’s being both kind and generous) — ChatGPT is decidedly not-awful. But that’s not the same as “good.” It’s not even clear if ChatGPT is “good enough” because nobody can quite agree on WHAT the output would be good enough FOR.
In the last few days alone, I’ve seen folks claim ChatGPT means the end of student essays up to and including at the college level. I’ve seen an analysis of the biases accidentally introduced into ChatGPT due to the algorithmic training model used to set it up. And most memorably (for me at least), I’ve seen people finding out the limits of what ChatGPT can know, including what is (and isn’t) kosher.
With all of that said, I work in a sector of I.T. broadly considered technical content marketing — which I define like this:
Creating content that speaks with a personal, human, and specific voice to the audience in a way that creates a connection to a problem, journey, or experience and thereby earns permission to talk about a feature, product, or capability.”
Therefore I’m choosing to stay in my lane and reflect on what ChatGPT means to folks who do similar work as I do and me. In short, I think (again, in the context of my work) that ChatGPT is another form of a content farm and not much more.
