By Gwen Rockwood, newspaper columnist and mom of 3
A few years ago, I did some freelance projects for an online agency that assigned writers to do work for business clients. Most of it was marketing copy, but the pay was decent. Then, in November 2022, a little thing called ChatGPT was released — one of the first widely used artificial intelligence chatbots.
Less than two weeks later, that writing agency shut down. The CEO’s final email didn’t explicitly say that artificial intelligence triggered the abrupt closure, but writers are good at reading between the lines. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who felt a cold shiver run down my back as the freelance work instantly dried up. Was this the beginning of the end for writers like me?
But today I can report that, even though ChatGPT has become the fastest-growing product in history and the fifth-most-visited website in the world, I think writers are going to be okay — at least for now. Yes, ChatGPT churns out writing for millions of people, but there are still things it doesn’t do well. I know this because, after two years of avoiding AI completely, I finally decided to get to know the competition.
When I began tinkering with ChatGPT, I expected to hate it. I wanted to confirm my assumption that AI was evil and on the brink of destroying human jobs. But the results of my tests are mixed. Like most innovations, artificial intelligence can do amazing things that will truly benefit humanity. And it can also have detrimental, unintended effects. It’s impossible to put it in a nice, neat box.
Now, for the question everyone wants to ask a professional writer: Do I use AI to write my column? Never. Is it useful for basic editing suggestions once the first draft is done? Yes. (All forms of writing benefit from a second pair of eyes, even if those eyes are artificial.)
Do I always take the suggested revisions? No. Artificial intelligence isn’t great at humor and sometimes suggests changes that make me cringe. But the second after I cringe, I breathe a sigh of relief. So far, ChatGPT isn’t funny. Score one for the humans.
Since AI learns at lightning speed, will ChatGPT get better at humor? Maybe, but only because it will mimic the work of real writers, which is how it was trained in the first place.
Writing that moves people to laughter or tears comes from the soul — from real human experiences. But ChatGPT didn’t go through puberty. It never got bullied by a 6th-grade mean girl. It hasn’t survived a broken heart. It doesn’t know the joy of seeing your baby’s face for the first time. It hasn’t endured several hours of colonoscopy preparations or felt the sweet relief of getting it over with. It doesn’t have a best friend, a favorite food, or even a dog who loves it.
Just to make sure my job as a columnist is safe (for now), I asked ChatGPT to write an opening paragraph for a column in my writing style. Here’s exactly what it generated after two seconds of work: “By the time you’re reading this, I will have already lost an argument with an inanimate object — probably my phone, possibly the printer, almost certainly the calendar. This is the season of life when nothing dramatic is happening, yet everything feels slightly off-kilter, like the universe has nudged my coffee cup just far enough from the edge to keep me on my toes.”
So, you be the judge. Is AI qualified to take over as a columnist? Not only does that weird paragraph make almost no sense, it also assumes I drink coffee. If it knew anything about me, it would know I’m a hardcore Chick-fil-A sweet tea drinker and have been for years. Do your homework, chatbot. You’re not even close.
How about you stay in your lane, writing essays for ethically compromised teenagers, and I’ll stay in mine — being a human who writes to other humans about stuff that only happens to humans. We’ll all get along just fine.
Gwen Rockwood is a syndicated freelance columnist. Email her at gwenrockwood5@gmail.com. Her book is available on Amazon.
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