Does ChatGPT (OpenAI) mean brands will no longer have a unique voice?

I’m not keen on writing about topical subjects. It gives the impression that I’m jumping on the bandwagon and doing it just because it’s trending on Twitter. Yet I feel strangely compelled to say something about ChatGPT, not least because the voices of healthy scepticism are voices in the wilderness. Most content about the issue seems to fall into two categories:

1) Embrace ChatGPT or perish;

2) AI will make many human skills redundant.

From where I’m standing and based on my own experimentation with the tool, it seems the problem isn’t artificial intelligence but human intelligence. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say human indolence and lack of integrity and creativity. As far as writing is concerned (and I’m addressing ChatGPT only in the context of writing because that’s what I do), there are two reasons people want to use it: speed and laziness.

ChatGPT helps us churn out content?fast

The OpenAI tool can produce hundreds of words on almost anything in seconds, respond to prompts to adjust or expand on points, and even emulate known authors. It’s still in the early stages, so ChatGPT is bound to get better, but at this point, its content is still mediocre at best. But when it comes to web content, especially in the fields of journalism and marketing, what matters to many is not quality and accuracy but getting there first.

We didn’t need AI to create that problem. Search engines and social media got there long before ChatGPT did. Take digital news, for example. For years now, a fair amount of online journalism has been little more than finding and regurgitating what people have posted on Twitter and presenting that as a news story. Gone are the days of investigative journalists unearthing information that’s hard to find. Now we hand popular opinion to them on a platter, and they make a collage out of our ill-informed comments. Maybe one reason many are so impressed with what OpenAI can produce is that our standards for human content are pretty low. ChatGPT will compound the problem by providing such uninspired content even faster.

ChatGPT means we don’t need to put in the hard work

Yes, I know that ChatGPT is a tool that could be useful, provided we don’t blindly accept whatever it produces, but let’s face it, we’re going to do just that. Consider how sloppy we already are about facts and details and how keen we are to be the first to write about a hot topic, rank high on Google, and go viral on social media. Call me cynical, if you will, but I’m doubtful that anyone who stands to profit from online content will give much thought to depth, integrity, and accuracy. As long as people click, who cares if it’s true? Truth doesn’t make money and rarely even gets any attention. Give people a title or image that interests them, shocks them, or enrages them, and they’ll click.

ChatGPT means we’ll all sound the same

The pervasion of ChatGPT in many domains of work and life seems inevitable, but it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more excited we get about the buzz we’ve created around it, the more people will feel pressure to use it with little thought for the outcome later down the road.

And what might that outcome be? Certainly not the end of the road for writing careers and human-produced content. On the contrary, those who insist that ChatGPT is the way to go will be in for a surprise. The more we rely on AI to produce texts for us, the more we’ll see a flattening of human personality and diversity in written content. Brands will no longer have a unique voice because everyone will speak with the same artificial tone, and no one will stand out from the crowd.

It won’t be long before audiences start crying out for something different – something that sounds unique, funny, clever, profound, and human. And that’s why we’ll still need writers.