If ChatGPT was a Colleague, You’d Hate It

ChatGPT is flavour of the month in marketing, with the A.I chatbot being found to have many applications that can be useful across the board.

Built on top of multiple large language models and using learning techniques to refine its database of knowledge, it effectively gets better at what it does the more you use it. Launched in November 2022, it’s still an incredibly new tool which, in turn, is generating wild optimism and deep scepticism from different corners of the marketing world.

Some, with a sense of historical knowledge and bleak view of capitalism, are worried that the advancement of A.I may jeopardise jobs as a robot can do things quicker and cheaper than a human whilst others have obnoxiously stated “if you’re worried about A.I taking your job then you’re not doing it properly in the first place”, or words to that effect.

So, firstly, don’t do that. If someone is worried about their future career, just don’t be an in-your-face muppet about it. Secondly, it’s far too early to say yet either way. Sure, there are ways and means of looking at it and futureproofing yourself, but society and technology do not move in logical or linear manners, pick up any history book and you’ll know that. For example, whilst today the word ‘Luddite’ means someone who is afraid of technology, the original Luddites objected to being treated as interchangeable labour and, yes, whilst they did smash up machinery that was threatening their jobs, their cause was much bigger than “Machinery bad!”

I’ve given A.I. a go, both professionally and personally, and I’m not entirely convinced by it as it stands, but I’m also not going to shoot it down either, it certainly has its uses. As a Content Writer, I’ve long held onto the belief that the Creative Industries should be able to hold their own against the machines in the inevitable Terminator-esque future war as we’ll be able to think, and write, with illogical emotion, be able to gauge the context of new trends, and just be able to create out of thin air…all things that A.I cannot do. But A.I can write endlessly boring product descriptions, or hundreds of key bits of meta-data faster than I can and without having to go make a cup of coffee every 15 minutes just to get away from staring at a screen.

So, is A.I. positive or negative? Well, put it this way, if it was a colleague how would you react? It has value as a tool, but can it compete on a human level? So, let’s put ChatGPT into a human body (hypothetically speaking, of course, I’m not here to play God).

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You Have to Teach it What You Know

Like any newbie to the industry, you have to teach this new colleague everything you know. This is just part and parcel of any business and should not be considered a negative in any way.? Anyone who has mentored a colleague or passed on significant knowledge will know how rewarding this can be but also how frustrating when you have to repeat yourself or answer too many questions.

A.I doesn’t do this, as when you tell it something, it remembers forever but it also lacks the imagination to then build on that. It also then doesn’t give you a follow up question, it doesn’t challenge the status quo or ask why things are done in such a way and it doesn’t offer that chance to personally develop back to you. So, a quicker learner than a new hire but it doesn’t allow you to grow.

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You Need to Give It Very Specific Questions

Humans, in general, largely understand context. This is very useful in working situations because people inherently gather that you are referring to a task, or incident within the field of work you are in. This is good because it means you don’t have to explain to people in the office, the exact details of your request, down to the minutiae, every single time you talk to them. However, with multi-purpose A.I. you really do have to be specific.

If you ask ChatGPT a generic question, it will give you a generic answer. Nothing wrong with that but then you have to refine your question, making sure it has all the possible working information, in order to get a satisfactory answer. This is one of the arguments for how it will remain a tool as opposed to eliminating jobs, as those who are already in those specific roles will have that specialised skillset already in place to know exactly what to ask it. This applies to SEO professionals, Content, Copy and others in marketing too.

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It Repeats Itself

This one is an interesting little side effect of multiple users that I have discovered but, if many people are asking the same question, the A.I is going to give you the same answer. So why is this a problem? Well, if you want unique content but are asking the same things as others then you’re going to quickly find out that ‘unique’ just isn’t possible coming from A.I. Likewise, if you use it for keywords, metadata or any other sort of SEO applications, you’ll find that it’s not giving you unique results which will mean Google will very rapidly tire of seeing the same thing over and over again and penalise you for it.

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It Clocks Off Early on a Friday

ChatGPT has a capacity limit, so when too many people are asking it questions, you’ll find that it just won’t work for you. Typically, near the end of the week, people are tired and will want to rely on tools a little more just to see them over the line and a problem you may encounter is that it just can’t take on board your requests during peak times. As such, it may well just clock off early on a Friday when you really need to push a project to completion.

Where does all of this leave us with A.I? It remains to be seen but hopefully it doesn’t cause you too much stress or worry, and likewise, it’s probably best not to rely on it as the be all and end all of marketing. It’ll be extremely interesting to see how it develops in the future but for now, chill out and use it wisely.