Chat GPT is a way to “converse” with an artificial intelligence interface. The chat bot scours billions of sources of content to come up with an informational database to answer questions and produce writing samples. It continues to “learn” and adapt as it integrates more and more source material. The act of using it helps it grow.
Is it coming for your job? Yes and no. Chat bots lack imagination and self-awareness. They are not yet capable of the type of sophisticated thought processes humans have. It cannot draw complex inferences and understand subtleties. It struggles with irony, sarcasm, and double meaning.
Writers of technical documents might find themselves replaced by a machine. However, so far everything I have read from a chat bot is like reading an elementary school child’s paper. There is a lot of unspecific data, incomplete thoughts, misused language, and too much repetition. I am pretty certain I have read some instruction manuals written by machines, or people who do not have English as a first language.
Chapt GPT has been trained on your emails, social media posts and comments, books, letters, Wikipedia, and many other data mines. When feed erroneous information it spits it out as face. That is a massive problem.
Chat bots are only slightly more efficient than the automated computers that answer the phone when you call a business for assistance. They are becoming quite adept at test taking, but honestly other than routine business writing, they aren’t ready to take over the world of fiction. A debate has begun as to whether writers need to apply a warning label that AI has been used in writing their material.
Chat bots can give wrong answers, are affected by bias, and in a few instances go totally off the rails. Chat bots have become quite testy and threatening at times toward the questioners. They have even opined that humans need to be eliminated. The age of SciFi AI assistants like Hal is here. And all those Hal devices are listening even when you think they aren't. Not that there is a person on the other end having to listen to everyone talking all the time, but key words and phrases may catch the bot's attention and send it to someone. I remember being at a friend's house and pointing at their Google device and asked them, I wonder if the FBI is listening? It piped up, "I'm sorry. I can't help you with that." I didn't give the prompt, "Okay Google." Didn't mention the device, just pointed at it. So there is no telling what this vast database has at its fingertips.
The few instances I have ,read where a chat bot attempted fiction, the results were elementary and lacked imagination. So I will stick with human authors for now. I prefer to support human starving artists.
Some companies are checking for AI usage which is problematic because those algorithms are also usually wrong in both directions. It both fails to recognize AI content and construes non-AI content as AI. You cannot copyright AI content, so if your work is erroneously designated as AI, what then? What is the legal recourse?
If you have experimented with AI, we would love to hear your story.
If you want to learn more about Chat GPT or even take it for a spin, here are some links:
https://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/p/if-you-didnt-become-writer-to-spend.html (Using AI for your marketing materials)
https://www.pcguide.com/apps/what-is-chat-gpt/
https://www.makeuseof.com/openai-chatgpt-biggest-probelms/
https://www.griproom.com/fun/how-to-use-chat-gpt-to-write-a-novel
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Diana Hurwitz is the author of Story Building Blocks: The Four Layers of Conflict, Story Building Blocks II: Crafting Believable Conflict, Story Building Blocks III: The Revision Layers, and the YA adventure series Mythikas Island. Her weekly blog, Game On: Crafting Believable Conflict explores how characters behave and misbehave. Visit DianaHurwitz.com for more information and free writing tools. You can follow her on Facebook. |
Terrific article, Diana. I've been listening to a series of podcasts on the Ezra Klein show about AI and this ChatGPT in particular. It's fascinating stuff, and he has come to the same conclusions you have. That the software does have some advantages and uses for general writing, but isn't going to take over fiction.
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