Human vs AI Article Comparison

I am working on a new blog article for ironplane.com. The topic is Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce with a focus on similarities and differences that merchants may care to know.

Starting out, I thought it might be helpful to define the term "open source". I did some research and ended up with what I thought was a pretty good result. That article is on the IronPlane LinkedIn page.

While working on these articles I've seen a lot of commentary about ChatGPT and the advent of AI content and the accompanying fears of human content going the way of the Dodo. So I thought I'd ask ChatGPT to write an article on the same topic so I could compare the results to my own work.

The prompt and the resulting article are at the bottom of this page. Here are my observations about the process and the results.

• The article I wrote about Open Source took me about 3 hours to write including a fair bit of reading research with a couple of curiosity rabbit holes.
• I had fun learning about open source and about the people involved. I got a sense of the personalities behind each movement (e.g. I learned about RMS's history of poorly chosen words, phrases, actions etc. that have resulted in a pretty active cancel action against him in recent years).
• My learning on this topic adds value to my day to day work as well as my future writing.
• The article from ChatGPT took about three minutes to generate.
• I used a generic prompt as though I had not done any of the research.
• The ChatGPT piece is pretty impressive. It is well organized, cleanly written and quite succinct in the information it provides. As with most business writing, it lacks much personality, but it covers areas I did not touch on in my article, which I think are relevant and could have added some value to my piece.
• The article seems to run out of steam near the end as it provides "In conclusion..." and then again "In summary..." and it reiterates some of the previously mentioned software without really adding much value. It also repeats much of the content about future of open source and Kubernetes for example.
• ChatGPT is early in its development and it will get better (a lot better). For some reason the idea of throwing pasta at a wall and seeing what sticks comes to my mind. ChatGPT gives you strands of value (that stick) and it is up to you to really make the most of them. Even in its current iteration, there is value here for sure in ChatGPT's output. Even in my furthest future vision of this tool, I see zero value from ChatGPT in the process. The work of developing an idea, researching that idea, discussing with peers, drafting, editing is a great deal more time consuming but also brings value in so many ways to the individual writer, to the team, and ultimately to the audience reading the result.

Here is my prompt: write a 900 word article answering the question "what is open source software?" and be sure to include historical facts, open source software examples and recent trends.

Here is the ChatGPT article:

Open source software is a type of software that is available to the public with a license that allows users to view, modify, and distribute the source code. The term "open source" refers to the fact that the source code of the software is openly available and can be modified and distributed by anyone. The concept of open source software has its roots in the free software movement of the 1960s and 1970s, but it wasn't until the late 1990s that the term "open source" was coined to describe this type of software.

One of the key principles of open source software is that it is developed by a community of volunteers who collaborate to create and improve the software. This is in contrast to proprietary software, which is developed by a single company or organization and is often kept closed to the public. Because open source software is freely available and can be modified by anyone, it has the potential to be more innovative and adaptable than proprietary software.

There are many different types of open source software, ranging from operating systems to applications to programming languages. Some of the most well-known examples of open source software include the Linux operating system, the Apache web server, and the Firefox web browser. These are all examples of software that has been developed and maintained by large communities of volunteers and that are widely used by individuals and organizations around the world.

In addition to the software, open source communities also provide support, documentation, and tutorials. The community also contribute in bug reporting and fixing, thus making the software more stable and reliable.

The rise of the internet and the growing use of the World Wide Web in the 1990s helped to fuel the growth of open source software, as developers around the world began to collaborate and share their code online. This led to the creation of many open source projects, such as the Apache web server, which was first released in 1995.

In recent years, open source software has become increasingly popular and widely used. Many organizations, both large and small, have started to adopt open source software for their IT infrastructure and for the development of their products and services. This is due to the fact that open source software often has many advantages over proprietary software, including lower costs, higher reliability and security, and greater flexibility.

One of the main trends in open source software in recent years is the rise of open source artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tools. As the field of AI and ML has grown, so too has the number of open source tools and libraries that can be used to develop AI and ML applications. These tools allow developers to easily build, train, and deploy machine learning models without having to write all of the code from scratch. This has the potential to greatly accelerate the development of AI and ML applications and make them more accessible to a wider range of developers and organizations.

Another trend in open source software is the growing use of containers and Kubernetes. Containers are a way to package software so that it can run consistently across different environments, which is important for software development, test, and deployment. Kubernetes is an open-source platform for automating the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. This technology makes it easy for organizations to deploy and manage their software in a cloud-native way, which allows them to take full advantage of the benefits of the cloud such as scalability, reliability, and cost savings.

In conclusion, open source software is a type of software that is freely available to the public with a license that allows users to view, modify, and distribute the source code. It is developed by a community of volunteers and has become increasingly popular and widely used in recent years. Open source software has many advantages over proprietary software, including lower costs, higher reliability and security, and greater flexibility. Open source software has played a crucial role in the development of many technologies and has been adopted by many organizations as a way to lower costs, increase innovation, and enhance collaboration.

Some of the most well-known examples of open source software include Linux, Apache, and Firefox, which have been widely adopted by individuals and organizations around the world. Other examples include WordPress, the widely-used content management system (CMS), and the widely-used programming languages Python and Java.

As open-source software continue to evolve, new trends continue to emerge, such as the rise of open-source AI and ML tools and the growing use of containers and Kubernetes in development and deployment. The increasing popularity of open source software can be attributed to the various advantages it provides, including the ability to access the source code, the ability to customize software to fit specific needs, and the ability to collaborate with a community of developers to improve the software.

In summary, Open-source software is a critical part of the technology landscape, and its popularity continues to grow as more organizations and individuals recognize its benefits. The community-driven development model, ability to access and customize source code, and cost savings makes it an attractive option for many software development scenarios. It has played a significant role in shaping the software development industry and continues to drive innovation through the contributions of a global community of developers.