Insights by: Ben Thomas
Article written by: Graham P Johnson
Can we talk about Chat GPT for a second? And maybe not to inflame the ongoing debates about the singularity or about shadow selves and rogue AIs, but an honest look at what this new tool is, and how it’s being used. Because at the end of the day, for all its hype and all its billions in funding, generative AI like ChatGPT is just that, a tool. From fire to inclined planes to the circuit, humanity has been finding better ways to get things done since the beginning and ChatGPT is just the latest incarnation of that.
Spinning Straw into Copper
A reassurance about ChatGPT is that at least for now, chatbots are pretty bad at writing. While that might be harsh, and potentially even temporary, you don’t have to look far to find myriad examples of ChatGPT failing to replicate human writing. From Sci-Fi magazines like Clarksworld being inundated with terrible AI-generated stories, to banks and marketing firms banning it outright, ChatGPT’s text has generally been found repetitive, emotionless, and ironically, robotic. ChatGPT is less of the mythical Rumpelstiltskin spinning straw into gold, as it is spinning straw into copper. ChatGPT can effortlessly, instantaneously create something from nothing, but it’s not gold. Not yet.
A Defense of Copper
If Chatbots like ChatGPT are not fielding all your emails or writing your novel for you, what is it being used for? Chatbots are perhaps the best tool we have for creating something from nothing, and that’s extremely valuable. As a tool for idea generation for first drafts and initial outlies, ChatGPT shines. Do you need a list of the best moments in basketball? ChatGPT can give you a hundred, but from there, you’ll need to pick and choose, and write and polish yourself. More than an autocomplete for all of your projects, ChatGPT is an incredible tool for saving time at the initial stages of generating ideas, drafting and writing.
These initial tasks that ChatGPT excels at include:
Idea generation
Topic generation
Providing basic information about unknown topics
Outlining
First drafts
ChatGPT can also work well on other tasks further along in projects including:
Formulaic copy like speaker bios
Resumes and cover letters
Drafting emails and texts
Automating routine tasks
The New Paradigm
Is generative AI like ChatGPT a paradigm shift? Probably but only in the same way that so many other tools that threatened our very lifestyles have been. For now, and perhaps for always, it’s a powerful tool that can be harnessed to unleash human creativity, optimize communications, and automat mundane functions, just like any other.