Through her eight collections of poetry and contributions to renowned anthologies, Greenville poet Claire Bateman has garnered such literary honors as the coveted Pushcart Prize, a National Endowment of the Arts artist grant and various other prestigious awards.
And she writes everything herself.
Uh, what? That might seem a ridiculous and even insulting comment. And yet, can you be certain a human actually wrote this very article?
Perhaps ChatGPT churned this out.
What is ChatGPT?
Short for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer,” it is a platform created by the artificial intelligence research and deployment company OpenAI that can mimic human speech and language nearly instantaneously.
The so-called “AI language model” blasted into reality last November, generating enough angst among educators and creative and professional writers to fill a novel, which, along with virtually every other word-herding job, ChatGPT can do.
The open-source platform can write essays, letters, short stories, screenplays — the list goes on and on.
For the sake of curiosity, let’s take the first few lines of Bateman’s “Another Poem on Blue”:
“Can I help it that I keep writing
the same poem over & over again?
No more than I can help being
reborn into this world
a million times every instant”
Then we asked ChatGPT: “Write a poem about writing in the style of Claire Bateman.” In the blink of an eye, the bot produced five stanzas. Here are the first and last ones:
“The pen becomes a wand
And I, a sorceress,
I trace a line of thought
Across an empty page.
For writing is a craft,
A mystery, a gift,
A way to make the world
A little more enchanted.”
Even those among us who are downright allergic to poetry can likely tell how unapologetically bad the generated platform’s attempt is.
“LLM prose tends to be either bizarre or soulless as Teflon,” Bateman said via email, using the initials for “large language model.”
Bateman saw this herself when her son recently took her author bio and asked ChatGPT to write a summary of her career.
“It produced a weird mix of truth and hallucination, including the titles of nonexistent books it claimed I’d written,” the Greenville poet said.
But Paul Johnson, co-founder and CEO of Pathwright, a Greenville technology company whose online learning and teaching platform could well disrupt education, sees ChatGPT as a tool similar to a painter’s brush, a writer’s keyboard or a photographer’s picture-editing software.
“The main thing that AI will not do in its current form, it won’t actually replace human ingenuity and creativity,” he says.
Still, he does see ChatGPT’s potential to rewrite job descriptions for at least some writers.
“All knowledge work — we can call it assembly-line white-color work — is definitely ripe for AI disruption, some of which is already happening,” he says.
The tool, he notes, can be especially helpful for technical, highly structured writing jobs, namely those for financial analysts, CPAs and software developers, among others.
John Boyanoski, for one, isn’t planning to write off his job anytime soon.
He’s president of Complete PR, whose very-human employees write and distribute carefully crafted, fact-checked content, from press releases to blog posts to news stories to branding copy.
“Good content is what we do,” says Boyanoski, who before starting his own company spent years as a newspaper reporter (including a stint at the Greenville Journal) and also authored several books.
Of ChatGPT, he says, “I was a little nervous at first. I’m like, ‘Oh, wow, this is terrifying,’ but then I started looking, and I’m like, ‘Well, this could be a really big help in this industry.’”
Likewise, Johnson says a writer can use the tool as an assistant to help with research, provide references and “just bounce ideas off of, kind of thinking aloud,” he says.
Aside from simply writing — or writing simply — the platform also can edit and critique a chapter (we asked, and it did a pretty good job). It can offer ideas for a novel (really bad ones; we checked that too). It can write songs (fairly mediocre ones; just ask Colin Meloy, frontman for the indie rock band The Decemberists, who recently recorded a ChatGPT-written song for his fans that falls flat compared to his band’s own creations).
Still, should scribes feel any threat from a program that can churn out copy in less time than it takes to boot up their laptop or sharpen a pencil?
Here’s how ChatGPT responded:
“Ultimately, I believe that there will always be a demand for high-quality writing that connects with readers on a personal level, and that this is an area where human writers will always have an advantage. AI technology like myself can assist and support human writers, but we cannot replace the unique perspective, voice and creativity that only human writers can provide.”
As for whether we should believe it, time will tell.
Writers as Luddites?
You’ve likely heard of the term Luddite, which is a catch-all word to describe anyone who is averse to technological change.
These days, writers may seem like low-tech Luddites simply banging away at a keyboard. The original “Luddites” gathered a mob of some 2,000 workers to destroy machinery in an English textile mill in 1812 because they believed the new technology would put them out of work.
They were said to be followers of Ned Ludd, hence the name. According to a 2015 NPR story, Ludd never existed.
According to Bateman, Boyanoski and Johnson, ChatGPT’s threat to creative and creatively professional writers is nonexistent too — at least, they say, for now.
Interview with a bot
Below are questions we asked ChatGPT for this story. This is what it wrote. The below has been edited for brevity, but required no spell- or grammar-checking:
Explain why you aren’t a threat to creative and professional writers.
As an AI language model, I am not a threat to creative and professional writers for several reasons:
- I don’t have personal experiences or emotions: While I can generate text that sounds human-like, I don’t have personal experiences or emotions that shape my perspective and style of writing. Creative and professional writers often draw from their unique experiences and emotions to create compelling stories or informative pieces that resonate with their audience.
- I lack creativity: While I can generate text based on patterns and trends in language usage, I can’t come up with new and innovative ideas or concepts on my own.
- I don’t have a unique voice: Although I can mimic the writing style of different authors, I don’t have a unique voice of my own. Each writer has their own distinct voice and perspective, which allows them to connect with their readers on a personal level.
- I require human input: While I can generate text on my own, I still require human input to ensure that the output is accurate, relevant, and meets the needs of the intended audience.
In summary, I am not a threat to creative and professional writers because I lack personal experiences and emotions, creativity, a unique voice, and require human input to ensure the quality of my output.
So what would you tell a Luddite like me about AI like yourself?
If I were speaking to a Luddite, someone who is generally opposed to new technology and the potential consequences it may have on society, I would try to address their concerns by highlighting some of the benefits of AI like myself.
… AI technology can help to streamline certain tasks and free up time for people to focus on other things. For example, by using an AI language model like myself to handle some of the more technical aspects of writing, writers can spend more time focusing on their creative ideas and bringing their unique perspective to their work.
… AI technology can help to increase efficiency and productivity in a variety of industries. For example, in manufacturing, AI-powered machines can help to streamline production and reduce waste, while in healthcare, AI can assist in diagnosing and treating diseases more accurately and quickly.
Of course, it’s important to acknowledge that new technologies like AI also bring potential risks and challenges. It’s important for society to carefully consider the ethical, social, and economic implications of new technology, and to take steps to ensure that these technologies are developed and used responsibly.
ChatGPT’s advice to writers
What are the best ways for creative and professional writers to use you as a tool?
As an AI language model, there are several ways that creative and professional writers can use me as a tool to enhance their work:
- Idea generation: Writers can use me to generate ideas for their writing projects. By providing me with a general topic or theme, I can suggest different angles, subtopics, and related concepts that the writer may not have considered.
- Research: Writers can use me to conduct research for their writing projects. I can quickly scan through millions of web pages, books, and academic papers to gather relevant information and provide summaries that the writer can use to inform their work.
- Editing and proofreading: Writers can use me to edit and proofread their writing projects. I can help writers identify grammatical errors, typos, and awkward phrasing that may be difficult to catch on their own.
- Language translation: Writers can use me to translate their writing projects into different languages. I can quickly and accurately translate text from one language to another, helping writers reach a broader audience.
- Content creation: Writers can use me to generate content for their writing projects. While I may not be able to create original ideas on my own, I can assist writers by generating text that they can use as a starting point for their own work.
Overall, the best way for creative and professional writers to use me as a tool is to think of me as a support system that can help them streamline their writing process, improve their writing quality, and expand their reach. By leveraging my capabilities, writers can focus on the creative aspects of their work, while I take care of the more technical and time-consuming tasks.
