Don’t give AI all the good stuff to do

When everyone was prompting ChatGPT last year to ‘Show a picture of my life based on what you know about me’, I felt conflicted! One part jealous, because I couldn’t participate in the trendy fun thing. Another part panicked because I felt left behind in two ways:

1. ChatGPT didn’t know who I was because I wasn’t using it on a level that it had developed ideas about me. This is still weird, but a revelation to think about - and could probably be interesting/ useful in future?

2. I’ve used it for research, but haven’t been using ChatGPT THAT much in my business the past year. Is this bad? Am I being left behind? Am I not doing the latest thing to help you do all the things? Am I being resistant or resentful?

Aand then I see memes like this (I mean, a newspaper clip gone digi-meme-viral, so that still happens!), and everything seems right with the world again.

I’ve never been threatened by ChatGPT; as a writing tool for people who can’t write, it must be such a pleasure! But using it for that would derive little satisfaction for me. I mean, are guitar players still crying about digital music? (Yes? Okay, never mind).

But the digitalisation of everything is the progress of the modern world we live in. You get people who will use AI to write their words and make their art. And people who don’t appreciate the art of either words or actual art (and their house is probably decorated with mass print digital art posters). You do you!

Words written by humans will never go out of style. Creative thinking done by humans, nuanced by our understanding of life as experienced by a living, breathing, feeling soul will always be unmatched (you can fight me on this, I care not). My heart beats for a humanity that CREATES with passion not prompts.

In ad hoc conversations about it, more than a few have mentioned they can see when social media captions are have been AI generated - they can spot the formulaic wordplay of machine-man copy a mile away. Eeew.

I’ll be honest, I did not realise using it like this had reached such critical mass that people - the audience on the receiving end - are already adept at spotting machine copy. (Yes, I was under a rock called New Motherhood - but now I am paying attention!). And I’m wondering…

Brands, are you aware this is happening? That it’s that obvious? That people KNOW. But more importantly, do you care? Or is it just words to you? Just marketing copy: key message, CTA, KPI’s, boom. Not art, not inventive, not stylistic, no human touch necessary?

I’ll leave it there. Because really, there is no there, there. But if you hear about AI doing laundry or the dishes anytime soon - I AM SO THERE!

(Disclaimer: I’m obviously aware ChatGPT can do much more than write copy. Just let me lament > for creativity < for a moment.

Also, feel free to share your helpful AI-I-Y ideas on ways ChatGPT has helped you in business, I’m all ears and practice-prompts here for it.)