The Rise of Generative AI: Are Writers Replaceable by ChatGPT?

The rise of AI, particularly generative AI, has been the hot potato. Many content creators have been introducing generative AI tools, and marketers are seen offering AI-related courses for their niche. There is no doubt that we are in the midst of a shift in the world, whatever industry we may be.

It’s an exciting transformation for humanity, but most of us see an apparent danger in AI. Why is this the case? It lies in the fact that many have been wary of this transition. Workers are terrified that AI might replace them. Well, unfortunately, due to the rise of generative AI, jobs have been lost. It has been reported that a total of 80,000 employees were laid off in the United States in the first quarter of 2023, and 5% of those layoffs were due to AI replacements.

That’s a terrible case. However, the truth is that robots and machines have been replacing humans in the past 50 years. Yes, the concept of automation and artificial intelligence has existed for centuries. From the 1950s to the late 90s, machine learning started and continued to gain traction through computers, with the promise of programming that can mimic humans.

RELATED READ: Here’s a Blockchain App that Empowers IPs and Farmers

In recent years, AI has been applied in various industries, like supply chain. Examples include robotics delivery in pharmacy operations, AI-based manufacturing quality control using sensor data, AI-enabled virtual reality for employee training, and automated kitchen assistants in fast-food preparation.

We now live in the age of “big data,” where the memory of computers exceeds our needs and expectations.

Generative AI, such as ChatGPT, has entered the mainstream at zero cost (at least for ChatGPT-3). Many people across industries use it to code their websites, translate texts into different languages, generate ideas, and write content.

Do we have a lot to fear?

Two months ago, I came across a Facebook post where a group member of Digital Nomads around the World reposted a screenshot of an Entrepreneur.com article entitled, “ChatGPT Took my Job in Copywriting. You could be next.”

The unnerving post received a lot of comments from netizens, and I decided to give my two cents’ worth.

“I got my new job as an editor because of ChatGPT. I edit articles that were written by the generative AI tool. I make them human and creative, plus I do research (not just online, but person-to-person). We might be in trouble; that’s why we should always be on the lookout.”

I got mixed reactions from people, including a pessimistic one: “You’re next. ChatGPT will improve and do what you’re doing soon,” to which I replied, “True. I also use ChatGPT to improve my work. I’m also learning ai-prompting, so I’m not really threatened by it.”

My reply was not just an “agree to disagree” comment; I saw him eye-to-eye. Technology has been on the rise so rapidly that, according to experts, we might be nearing the end of the Moore’s Law. We do not know what’s coming. Who would ever imagine that a web-based generative AI tool like ChatGPT or Bard could generate a complete content plan or an informational blog post?

Staying Unbothered

Is AI a threat to humanity and the workforce as a whole? As I said, AI has been around for many years, and it has both threatened and saved lives and jobs. There’s no point in being anxious about new technologies because we are already amid the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and we can do nothing but adjust.

Now, let’s go back to Entrepreneur.com’s article and the comments. There’s another one that I agree with. “Any writer threatened by GPT is writing AI-replaceable topics. If your writing job is GPT replaceable, you probably weren’t much of a writer to begin with.”

In my case, I am currently the writer-editor of an AI and cloud-based software company. One of my tasks is to edit blog posts, which were written by some of my colleagues and, yes, a robot (via ChatGPT); I have to add supplemental case studies, reports, and my opinions about each topic, which makes the article written by a human and not AI. Another task I have is journalistic in nature where I interview supply chain experts about the current trends in the industry and write about it on our company’s blog.

I’ve seen content creators teach people that you can start your own blog using AI. Yes, it’s true. It’s easy to write a ChatGPT prompt and ask it to write about a particular topic. However, as an AI editor, I easily recognize the basic ChatGPT writing prompt. If you aren’t specific, it has a distinct writing style seen throughout millions or billions of content prompts from all ChatGPT users. You’ll be caught off guard if you’re not keen on this.

RELATED READ: An AI-powered Baybayin Translator is being Developed by UP Mathematicians

If you’re a lifestyle or personal writer or blogger, congratulations! As I see it, AI won’t replace your niche in the future unless you make it so. If you’ve been writing for some time now, your readers are used to your voice, and they will know if you’ve used a robot to write an article.

What’s also great about writers and the media is that they are the most resistant to generative AI. If you belong in that industry, I’m pretty sure that only a few to zero people use generative AI. If you’re in the right place (e.g., your bosses are writers themselves), then there’s a greater chance that robots won’t replace you.

Make AI Your Assistant

In life, we have very little control over our surroundings: the people around us, the trends, and shifts in our societies, but what we have 100% control over is ourselves.

As I’ve said, we’re amidst a global transition, so what do we do? Like what humans have been doing since time immemorial, we survived. We endured. And according to Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, “organisms best adjusted to their environment are the most successful in surviving.”

Part of that survival is adapting to AI, and the great news is that we can make AI our assistants. Let’s shift our focus on how we can benefit from AI, not how AI can be a detriment to us.

We can ask AI to generate ideas for us. For the past five years, I’ve been using an AI tool such as Grammarly to help me check my writing prepositions.

I interview artists on my pop culture blog, so I use an AI tool to transcribe my interviews with them. ChatGPT has also helped me translate my song lyrics into different languages.

There are many more ways in which AI can help and empower writers. But then again, do not let AI take over you. Write your own articles, poems, scripts, etc. People will know if it’s a robot or still you.

Karim Lakhani, a professor at Harvard Business School specializing in AI, said AI-enhanced experiences and transactions are now commonplace, and leaders need to embrace the technology, learn to harness its potential and develop use cases for their businesses. Although his statement pertains to business leaders, it also applies to writers and the media. He is confident that “AI won’t replace humans, but humans with AI will replace humans without AI.”

We are already living in the AI age. We should adopt a digital mindset if we don’t want to be replaced. Find out how AI can help you do your daily tasks and enhance your craft. Nevertheless, do so without abusing the tools. If we entirely rely on AI, we won’t be able to improve our skills.

A Final Word

As of now, AI has limited creativity, and it has not mimicked a human being 100%. ChatGPT, or generative AI art such as Midjourney, derives its outputs from data computations all over the internet using powerful chipsets. However, we’re lucky that it has confined capabilities as of now.

We have no control over whatever lies in the future of AI, but what we can do is survive by adjusting to the trends without losing our values and ourselves.

The copyright-free photos used in this blog post are from Pexels. Cover Photo by Andrew Neel.