No doubt I’m late to the party when it comes to ChatGPT. I’ve been hearing about it for a few years — more recently how people in communications and marketing, which is my corner of the universe, are using it for everything from research to brainstorming to actually writing things like blog posts.
As a writer, the idea of representing anyone — or anything — else’s work as my own is unimaginable. For that reason, I had not even thought to go there when it comes to the kind of writing that I do.
But I was at a conference recently where yet another speaker highly recommended checking out ChatGPT and what it can do. If nothing else, she said, just ask it something — anything.
Not long after, I needed answers to a few complicated questions — preliminary stuff, the kind of thing you might ask an attorney or accountant or tax expert if you knew one but weren’t really serious about pursuing it at that point. I’d gone down the Google search rabbit hole of one thing leading to another and still another but never definitively resolving the question in one neat package; instead, it was up to me to glean what I could from all of those sources and form my own opinion about what the probable answer would be.
Then I remembered what that speaker had said about ChatGPT. So I went there and typed in the question as if I was having a conversation with a knowledgeable expert. Within seconds, there was a detailed, thoughtful answer explaining various scenarios in response — all in one place. It really felt like asking an expert: conversational, logical, and easy to understand.
I also know ChatGPT can completely get things wrong — like that person we have all encountered who gives you an authoritative answer whether they actually know what they’re talking about or not. You can’t take for granted that the AI version is accurate. And ChatGPT always advises you to consult an expert.
But in this instance, it basically synthesized all of the bits and pieces I’d found around the internet with conclusions that helped clarify what I was trying to learn. Of course I’d seek a professional if I needed to take any further action.
But now I have the app on my phone and have since found it to be helpful for a lot of questions I have. It’s like the internet is that person you ask a question of in spite of yourself because you know it’s going to be a long and winding road to maybe get a murky answer at the end, versus going to a knowledgeable straight shooter who will tell it like it is without wasting a lot of words.
I wouldn’t use ChatGPT to look up what movies are showing tonight or check the hours of a certain restaurant. Those I Google. But when I just want a direct answer to a complex question, I do use ChatGPT, just to see what it has to say.
When it comes to writing, though, that’ll still be me.