Lately, ChatGPT has been making headlines and generating buzz. AI tools like Bing’s AI chatbot have piggybacked off this press to make headlines of their own. Companies like Microsoft have pledged to use ChatGPT.
So that brings me to pose the question, how much of this buzz is hype and how much is deserved?
Two of my freelance clients have asked if I can use Chat GPT to write content and edit the AI generated content, so we can produce more written content on a regular basis.
Here is what I found:
Chat GPT might be able to answer your questions, but your questions will be answered in very plain English and high level summaries, that are often poorly written. An article titled, “ChatGPT Is Dumber Than You Think,” by Ian Bogost for The Atlantic agreed stating that “you may find comfort in knowing that the bot’s output, while fluent and persuasive as text, is consistently uninteresting as prose.” The same article by Bogost, also stated that “because the tool doesn’t understand the meaning behind the words (it is merely searching the web for answers, similar to a search engine), the answers are likely to be shallow and lacking in depth and insight.” Not so different from my own experience, the generative AI tool reminded me of SmarterChild from the early 2000s… not that smart. An equivalent statement was made for Wired by a university student named Kai Cobbs, “the quality of writing was appalling. The phrasing was awkward and it lacked complexity.”
Sources are not cited, which could easily lead to plagiarism if you don't use search engines in conjunction with ChatGPT to find sources. When asked where ChatGPT gets its information from, ChatGPT responded, “As an AI language model, my knowledge is based on the vast amount of text and data available on the internet. I was trained on a diverse range of sources, including books, articles, academic papers, and websites.” So basically anything you could Google yourself is what ChatGPT is automatically generating for you, but without sources. The lack of citing sources could also mean that ChatGPT is gathering inaccurate information from disreputable sources like personal blogs and opinions, rather than fact based sources.
Prompting the tool properly may lead to more specific answers, but this method is not more effective or efficient than using a search engine to find sources, quote, or summarize what you found sans AI.
If you use the tool the way my clients suggested - use prompts for 80% of the writing, and 20% human editing - your work will either be poorly written or your attempts to rewrite the content will end up requiring more work than traditional research and writing practices would take.
I have spoken to many marketers and non-marketers about this topic. Non-marketers generally try to debate that ChatGPT is a great tool if you know how to prompt it. However, based on the above points, I disagree, as do most of my peers: other expert marketers.
ChatGPT is best used for small copywriting and SEO teams where volume is needed. However, ChatGPT shouldn’t be used to write. Instead, ChatGPT should be used when stuck or out of creative energy to get the wheels in motion again. ChatGPT is not a content generation tool. It is a research tool at best. But remember, research without sources doesn’t leave much.
Google ranks for relevance and quality. Regardless of what tools are used to research content topics, Google will still rank content based on relevance and quality. Google's algorithm can detect spammy content. And as entry level copywriting skills become increasingly hard to find, a skilled writer is an asset at any organization where content is a part of the marketing strategy.
“Picture a piece of notebook paper with printing (no more cursive handwriting) that starts on the first line all the way on the left-hand side and continues down the entire page without any indentations, paragraphs or blank lines. Just a block of text…. If I were talking about a third-grade class, you wouldn’t be surprised. But I’m referring to 10th graders in an honors class, two years away from entering college… With each passing year that I teach, I have seen a degradation in students’ writing skills,” wrote a teacher for an article in the LA Times.
Writing skills are decreasingly available, not only in schools, but also in the workforce. Despite ChatGPT’s merits, it doesn’t solve for the lack of writing skills in the present workforce, especially when examining educated writers entering the workforce today.
If there is widespread adoption of ChatGPT from marketing teams, there will still be a way to stand out. When companies and teams are using the technology inappropriately, the way to stand out on the marketing side, will be to hire imaginative talent to write creative and novel prose.
When all other content is generic, and quality content is prioritized by the algorithm, the good content will rise to the top. While lazily written, AI-generated content, will not rank. Quality will trump quantity.
Anytime the masses praise a technology and anytime there is a lack of criticism on any tool, product, or technology, it is important that to take a closer look. Because of the lack of critical evaluations of ChatGPT, my conclusion is that the buzz around ChatGPT is a result of OpenAI’s large PR budget, evidenced by: