Where Marketing Meets AI
“ChatGPT is a large language model developed by OpenAI. It is trained on a diverse range of internet text and is able to generate human-like text in response to prompts. It can be used for a variety of natural language processing tasks such as language translation, text summarization, and conversation.”
The above paragraph was written entirely by ChatGPT, using the prompt “what is ChatGPT?”.
So, apparently, the future is now, and a worryingly good Artificial Intelligence (AI) copywriting tool is here. AI, for those who may not know, is essentially software capable of learning and carrying out tasks fairly independently. In essence, a bot.
The latest bot to make waves is ChatGPT, which came on the scene less than two months ago and is already proving it can write everything from code to marketing content.
We’re all mulling over the possibilities and implications. What does this mean for content writers specifically? Will all copywriting eventually be done by AI? Is there still a place for writers, and if so, for how much longer?
HashTag Marketing tried it out to see if it lived up to the hype.
How’d it do?
In short, surprisingly well and pretty “meh”, all at the same time.
Let’s look at the pros and cons:
Pros:
- A social media post, essay, or intro to a short story can be generated in seconds
- You can prompt the tool to write in the style of a specific author, and it does so quite adequately
- It can offer suggestions on graphics that resonate with the copy provided or generated
- It can help plan marketing or advertising campaigns
- It can create generic content on a variety of topics
- The capabilities and uses are vast
Cons:
- A human still needs to write out a prompt and add links, with more detail and instruction in order to get the answer you really want – which can be as time consuming as just writing the post yourself
- The content generated is often quite clunky or flat
- There are a limited number of content variations that can be generated
- It can offer made-up or incorrect facts
- It is unable to offer information on events occurring after 2021
- Some of the generated content can be biased or offensive
Is it coming for your job?
As with all developments, there is the worry that certain jobs will be made redundant. However, in this case, human writers offer creativity and innovative thinking that an AI just isn’t capable of yet. Human writers know which words are inappropriate or overused, we know what ideas are derivative and we can offer up information tailored to resonate with different audiences. AI is limited to scanning and collating the data it’s given and reworking it to generate copy that is usually pretty generic… Although, it’s possible we’re a little biased about that.
AI-powered copywriters could be used to handle the generic parts of writing that human writers might find dull or tedious, thereby freeing us up to write what we really enjoy.
AI is likely to make existing jobs easier and more efficient, while also creating jobs that don’t exist yet, in the same way, machines took over from humans in assembly lines and created jobs for programmers and mechanics.
To be sure, we asked ChatGPT directly, “Do you want my job?” and it responded with:
“As an AI, I do not have the ability to want or desire anything. My purpose is to assist users by processing and generating natural language based on the input provided to me. I’m here to help you with information and answer any questions you may have to the best of my ability and knowledge.”
The changing role for humans.
You need human writers to train, prompt and edit the content that comes from an AI-powered copywriter. Humans are needed to ask the right questions of an AI and to know what to do with that information
It’s easy to get caught up in the panic, but let’s remember, we felt the same level of panic when the first AI-powered transcription tools began to appear in the early 2000s. These early tools weren’t very good and struggled to handle the complexity and variability of human speech. Then, in the 2010s, AI-powered transcription tools started to become more accurate and sophisticated, and we were delighted that a tedious part of our jobs could be automated. This is potentially the same situation. Sure, AI-powered copywriters can create content much faster than human writers, but there are limitations (for which we’re very glad).
We shouldn’t shy away from AI or fear it taking our jobs. We should find ways to make it work for us. AI is emerging as an always-learning, ever-better tool to assist and support humans, and to make our jobs easier.
And we should let it. – This is probably exactly what an AI might say but we promise, the HashTag team is definitely all human… For now.
