What is ChatGPT?

Chat GPT4 is the latest iteration of an AI tool created by OpenAI (a Microsoft company). GPT4 can be used for many different purposes. It can be used to generate human-like text, audio, code, video, images and other data. Its popularity is huge, some even say disruptive, while people try to understand its capabilities. It is so popular, it took us some time to even try the tool ourselves as the website was frequently at capacity. Over the last few years we’ve seen other iterations of this tool released, and the speed at which developments are being made is incredible.

What can it do and what are its strengths and weaknesses?

The levels at which it can generate outputs differs depending on what you are looking to use the tool for, for example currently with content marketing, the tool will generate text but it is not at final draft stage and needs human input for fine tuning. The tool can be useful for writing short form content like social media posts, product and image descriptions quickly – or at least coming up with hundreds of ideas quickly that you can further develop yourself. What we did find while testing though, is that a lot of product based social media posts we asked the tool to generate were very similar and lacked originality.

Why can’t I use AI to generate content for my business?

Well, you could, but we thought we’d cover a few reasons why it may not be the best idea. We aren’t downplaying AI at all, it can be a useful tool and has its place, but we don’t think you should replace your marketer or copywriter just yet…

It isn’t a specialist

Whilst it answers with some factual information, it doesn’t understand the nuances of every industry and the intuition of those within it, and similar prompts will generate similar outputs that are very formulaic in nature. If you are hoping to use ChatGPT to write copy for your website, for instance, it isn’t going to write anything that is compelling to make you stand out from your competitors. Anything where you are relying on depth and insight, rely on a human.

It is based on old information

The factual information we mentioned that ChatGPT serves up, its answers from the large amount of data it has scraped and analysed from the internet pre 2021. So not the current, most up-to-date information.

It doesn’t know ‘truth’

If challenged on inaccuracies (assuming you can spot them), it will also occasionally admit that it made something up. GPT4 is based on iterative learning, so it is learning from previous interactions with humans, whether accurate or not. It’s a bit like doing maths and getting the root of the sum wrong… it just isn’t going to be correct however hard you try, making the output hard to trust.

How is ChatGPT an opportunity?

GPT4 can be used to perform a lot of laborious, monotonous tasks quickly, freeing up time to work on other creative projects. But for the moment, it should be seen as a tool to work with rather than something that should replace marketers or copywriters. It can be a useful tool for helping with writers block – imagine it more like an assistant, but you are its manager. Unrefined, unedited AI text may harm SEO as it is perceived to be low quality content so it’s likely to be a blend for years to come, and that outputs will still need humans to check, for example, tone, voice, and correct keywords used throughout while weaving in up-to-date industry information. 

Ultimately, we wonder if in the end it will be obvious to readers that they are interacting with content written by AI, and whether the art of crafting an article written by a fellow human will be something that is revered? What are your thoughts?

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Image: DeepMind on Unsplash.