If you’re working with decent writers, the process of getting to grips with artificial intelligence (AI) writing tools like ChatGPT shouldn’t scare you. Because these tools will never replace human content marketers – instead, they can make our jobs easier, if we let them.
Whether it’s a headline that hooks us in, a meme-able video packed with belly laughs, or a witty tweet that raises a smirk, story-based marketing will always be more effective than purely promotional messages.
And there’s no tool yet that can replace human emotion and creativity in crafting that story.
What is ChatGPT?
Released by OpenAI in November 2022, ChatGPT is an open source “Large Language Model” chatbot. Yes, a chatbot – like the annoying ones popping up on the bottom corner of your screen to ask if you want to talk to someone when you’ve only just landed on the page.
But according to the Search Engine Journal (SEJ), they trained this particular chatbot with a huge dataset of 175 billion parameters to predict how sentences should logically flow in a conversation. As it uses lots of human-generated data from the internet backed up by human feedback, it’s basically learned how to sound human and follow instructions – which, let’s be honest, is a lot more than some actual people.
ChatGPT isn’t about to pass the Turing test any time soon though. It’s not a sentient being, it has no personality, and it literally cannot generate anything original. However, it’s definitely fun to play with, and people all over the interwebs have been having a grand old time trying to “jailbreak” it.
Alongside the GPT3-based AI chatbot, its non-profit creators are also responsible for building the older DALL-E tool (WALL-E/Salvador Dalí – geddit?) which uses written prompts to create incredible digital art in all manner of styles.
In both use cases, there are ethical issues around copyright, especially with creative output. But just like with ChatGPT, artists who use physical media like paint, clay, and textiles aren’t worried about DALL-E either.
Why I’m not worried about AI writing tools
Creatives who are on top of their game will always outsmart those trying to cut corners with crappy generated content.
As humans, we have creativity in our DNA. Every aspect of us has evolved to be creative – from the way we think to the way we speak and even move our bodies.
There’s no algorithm in the world that can come close to understanding the essence of our humanity, especially in how we perceive the world around us and how we process information. Humans aren’t as rational as economists would like you to believe – and in all that irrationality, we’re not yet close to where AI can replicate the randomness.
Philosophical pondering aside, here’s why you shouldn’t believe the hype around AI stealing your content marketing job…
They’re massive search engines (kinda) with fun extra features
As I said earlier, everything ChatGPT and other GPT3-based AI writers generate is based on that dataset of 175 billion parameters. And the current dataset is already old news: the knowledge cut-off is 2021, so good luck trying to generate something useful for anything that’s happened in the last year.
You could use AI to generate a bunch of general ideas for you, but you’d still have to do the hard work of actually moulding it into something innovative. With bots like ChatGPT and DALL-E, you still need a human touch to take it beyond something that already exists.
They’re not accurate enough
In a manner somewhat similar to certain politicians, ChatGPT consistently churns out bullshit with such confidence that you’d think what it’s saying is true.
No one really knows specifically why it does this, but as it’s a language learning model, we can guess that it’s not as good at recognising context as it is giving you something that sounds good – so, for example, it’ll happily give you facts about a notable figure or event, if you ask, but you will definitely have to fact check whether the output it’s given you is true.
In other words, you can’t leave common sense to the wind here in the pursuit of saving time.
They can’t nail personality… yet
Sure, the bot can mimic a specific style or voice. But it’s nowhere near as versatile as an experienced copywriter or content marketing writer who flits between different audiences.
You can forget about any kind of wordplay (
), for example. Nuance isn’t something chatbots are good at detecting. How can you expect a mathematically based algorithm to work out a pun?!
Someone actually tried entering a pun competition with ChatGPT and, as you’d expect, it was a spectacular failure.
Before you panic about using AI tools, do this instead
AI isn’t going away anytime soon.
There are already loads of intelligent assistants everywhere you look – from automated customer service bots to Alexa and Siri. And just like the spying smartphone in your pocket, we train these bots to get smarter every day we interact with them.
This probably means they’ll eventually become capable of mimicking aspects of the human brain, even down to developing their own personalities – though whether that’s a good thing remains an important question…
As a marketer, it’s in your best interest to embrace technology and use it to your advantage rather than resisting it. Here are a few ways you can use AI to find the right shortcuts in your creative process and boost your competitive advantage:
- Get over your writer’s block: Use AI to brainstorm ideas for your content outlines when you’re feeling a bit stuck. Don’t let it take the wheel, of course, but allow it to kick start your momentum.
- Work on your SEO: Lots of content marketers already use natural language processing (NLP) AI tools like Clearscope to find topics to write about. These types of tools also help you structure your content better by scanning it for potential keywords and making sure your article flows well.
- Train your writing skills: Technology won’t ever be able to replace you as a brand. Your voice is still unique and your readers will recognise that – they’re drawn to your personality and your content. But no matter how good you or your team are at writing, you can always improve your skills. Free tools like the Hemingway App or Grammarly can help you analyse your work.
Ultimately, AI writing tools are just that – tools. They’re no replacement for, or threat to, decent human writers, nor can they completely replicate their creative output.
Instead, view them as powerful aids for speeding up your content creation process. When you use tools like ChatGPT to their fullest potential, you strengthen your creativity and help your writers become more productive and efficient.
No cause for alarm… yet.
