Don’t Fear the Robots: Why ChatGPT Won’t Replace Content Writers Any Time Soon

These days if a client starts a sentence with, “So, what are your thoughts on…” we can almost guarantee it ends with “ChatGPT.” But are we threatened? Not in the slightest. We greet ChatGPT curiosity as an opportunity to reaffirm our value. The robots may think they can come for our gig, but we’ve got the essential thing an algorithm lacks: humanity. 

That may sound like the denouement of a bad sci-fi movie, but I mean it earnestly. ChatGPT is an innovative and interesting step in the development of artificial intelligence. It has the potential to transform certain tasks, saving time and resources — increasingly precious commodities as tech layoffs continue, forcing marketing teams to do more with less. But ChatGPT is no more capable of replacing your content team than it is your C-suite. Allow me to explain.

What is ChatGPT and why is everyone so obsessed with it?

If you’ve heard about ChatGPT but are still too unbothered — or afraid — to acquaint yourself with the details, here’s a quick primer. 

Generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) technology is a large language model (LLM) that analyzes vast troves of data until it is capable of convincingly replicating data when prompted. OpenAI kicked off the AI-content generation craze in September 2022 when they released image generator DALL-E 2 to the public. Thanks to the AI’s ability to edit human faces, DALL-E 2 (and equivalents like Lensa) quickly went viral, with celebrities, influencers, and regular people sharing artistic renderings of themselves as fairies and space cowboys.

OpenAI released chatbot ChatGPT less than two months later — and people lost their minds. The Atlantic worried ChatGPT could kill the college essay. A Vanity Fair writer prompted ChatGPT for the introduction to an article about writers being replaced by AI — but, get this, in the style of Ernest Hemingway — and had an existential crisis when the response was “pretty spot-on.” According to Wired, after the release of ChatGPT, Microsoft considered increasing its investment in OpenAI from a cool $1 billion to $10 billion.  

The ChatGPT craze is understandable. Never before has a mainstream AI tool been able to do so much — from writing copy to teaching code, and even holding human-like conversations (evoking the immortal memory of SmarterChild for AIM-era Millennials). All this potential from just a simple written prompt entered into an unassuming interface.

So, is ChatGPT good for content writing?

No doubt inspired by all the hype and hot takes, marketers and content creators soon began experimenting with ChatGPT — and this is when the other shoe dropped. 

The first major red flag was the confidence with which ChatGPT presents patently false information. For example, when Mind Matters asked ChatGPT how many bears Russia has sent to space, it responded, “According to estimates, about 49 bears have been sent into space by Russia since 1957.” In reality, Russia has sent exactly zero bears to space. Mind Matters says the culprit is obvious; tools like ChatGPT “can also get their facts wrong since they are not trained to distinguish between true and false statements, only to predict statistically likely sequences of words.” But bears in space is a humorous representation of a not-so-funny issue. When Bloomberg tested ChatGPT’s tax advice with a series of questions, “ChatGPT provided incorrect answers 100% of the time—though usually on the right track, it missed nuances of the tax code.” 

If the information ChatGTP returns isn’t accurate or trustworthy, it kneecaps any value as a research or content writing tool. You’re not saving time if you have to fact-check your chatbot’s every claim. ChatGPT content can also suffer from structural and tonal issues often requiring deep edits; Theresa recently experimented with ChatGPT for a client and found the chatbot’s draft required almost an entire rewrite before it was fit for publication.  

Another issue is the source of the gargantuan datasets used to train ChatGPT. Namely, the internet, complete with its penchant for disinformation, bias, and hate speech — all things good writers, journalists, and creators know have no place in reputable content. 

But perhaps the biggest problem with ChatGPT as a content creation tool is that however close it can come to parroting every college bro’s favorite author, it cannot replicate the personality, creativity, and authenticity a human writer brings to the table. A closer look at how writers for clickbait behemoth Buzzfeed reacted to the advent of AI-generated content really helps drive this point home.

AI-generated content at Buzzfeed  

As reported by The Verge, at the end of January Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti sent a memo to staff sharing plans “to use AI tools provided by ChatGPT creator OpenAI to ‘enhance’ and ‘personalize’ its content.” Following this announcement, Business Insider interviewed employees at Buzzfeed about ChatGPT — and though most expressed their concern, it wasn’t due to any perceived threat to their livelihood. Instead, they were more worried about the quality of Buzzfeed’s content suffering. As one freelancer concluded, “My general thought process right now is it's less likely for me to lose the contract because of the AI installation itself and instead a worry that Buzzfeed itself will dissolve after losing all integrity and any remaining trust that existed once the AI articles begin popping up.” A staff writer echoed similar sentiments: “The best thing about BuzzFeed and the part everyone has always gravitated towards is the personality-driven content and the connection it fosters with readers/viewers. If you take that away, I don't see how the quality and performance won't crash and burn."

The final verdict on ChatGPT for content creation

If I’ve come across as a ChatGPT Luddite, I apologize. None of this is to say generative AI is useless or irrelevant. I’m just trying to hammer home that ChatGPT is a tool — the best uses of which are being determined in real-time. If the factual inaccuracies and biases can be ironed out, ChatGPT’s ability to aggregate and analyze immense quantities of data could very well become a key part of generating content ideas, researching topics, or outlining briefs. 

But what ChatGPT — or any form of AI (except maybe M3GAN) — cannot do, is replace the human touch. For now, content writers are still required to proof, edit, and repackage any so-called content resulting from a ChatGPT prompt. 

So if you’re one of those teams suffering from layoff-provoked marketing deficits, don’t expect ChatGPT to pick up the slack. There are other, more refined AI-powered marketing tools out there actually capable of saving your organization time and labor; check out my list on LinkedIn to learn which AI tools our two-person team relies on most.