ChatGPT is The "Noah’s Flood" for Digital Creators: Time to Join the Ark
The Launch of ChatGPT (Open AI) Is One of Those Rare Moments in History When We Know Nothing Will Ever Be The Same.
Ok. Quick disclaimer:
If you are now passing through a hard time, really not feeling good, close it (for real). It may contain triggers. Get better then come back (You’ll be fine champ).
Quick disclaimer 2:
I’m not a tech or marketing specialist. And I think it’s a good thing because I speak from a (more) neutral perspective. I won't (immediatily) lose or make money with it.
My background is actually in law and political sciences. Was the founder of Action Public Affairs which is now one of the most important political and risk analysis consultancies in Latin America (Brazil).
My team and I were hired to risk analyze macro scenarios and advise stakeholders such as national public authorities, private companies and ONGs (many of them global). And, just saying, our track record was sweet.
I don’t do that anymore. Yet, I ran into the ChatGPT tool this week by chance and my crisis alarm buzzed like crazy. What worries me the most is not seeing people acting by what might be coming next. This is what motivated this article.
Wtf Is ChatGPT
If you want the technical stuff, not the place.
I’ll say it in the way I understood (and tested it). A way that a 5-year-old would get.
ChatGPT is a tool created by a company named Open AI. This company has big figures behind it, including Elon Musk.
Making it simple: this tool is like an intellectual superhuman employee (that requires no salary) who accepts anyone as a master. Anyone who knows basic reading and writing can make questions or give orders. All it demands is to ask the question or write simple prompts, the way you naturally speak (no code needed).
Oh, and it responds to many languages, not only English. Meaning, billions of potential masters.
Example:
Let’s say a 16-year-old has to deliver an essay at school about the Napoleonic Era and how it relates to the II World War.
The student goes to ChatGPT and commands:
Write an essay about the Napoleonic era, highlighting the main phases of it, and compare it to the Second World War.
Press enter.
In seconds, the AI has written a good essay about it with original ideas. It was creative.
If you don’t believe me, check the PrintScreen:
Man, it has compared Hitler to Napoleon. It has compared the causes of the war. It’s f*cking insane.
The majority of the assessment tools of the educational system are doomed. Homework? Master Thesis?
As far as I’m concerned, this is plagiarism and copyright's (and also copywriting as we'll refer) worst nightmare.
Did you notice the “try again” bottom of the screenshot?
Very well, if you didn’t like the first essay, you just need to refresh it and it will reframe it to you with new ideas and new arguments.
Voilà:
Ok… But it will never replace a human, we have emotions and we have unique styles…Right?
Right?
Well… Not really. Check this out:
Write an essay about the Napoleonic era, highlighting the main phases of it, and compare it to the second world war. Use an emotional tone and Barack Obama’s writing style.
It just gave me goosebumps. However, you might not be convinced yet.
Well, if that’s your case, when you’re finished please read this other article, here on Medium. It was written by a Google top executive. She knows serious stuff.
You don’t need to read it all. By half of it, you will get my point.
Anyway, summarizing my point:
This witchcraft compares aspects of historical facts, rebuilds itself multiple times, and impresses emotion and style.
AND THIS IS STILL A BETA VERSION FOR CHRIST’S SAKE.
It feels like getting an all-inclusive weekend in Vegas and having later-in-life Michael Jackson as your roommate: it’s exciting but kind of scary.
Advanced AI is scary because it implies unknown changes.
Let’s try to frame this fear in a more logical way:
- AI turns hard tasks into easy tasks (Ex: blog writing)
- A hard task made easy has low (or zero) entrance barriers
- More people will enter those markets and offer services + More people who used to outsource those tasks will be able to execute for themselves (and stop demanding)
- Offers increases + Demand reduces = Excess of offer/ Lack of demand = Prices go down
- Low prices reduce businesses’ income
- Reduced income requires cost reduction
- Cost reduction normally requires staff reduction.
Easy To Replace Professional Fields
From what I’ve tested the most immediate are:
- Blogging (it even writes poetry)
- Copywriting (probably the most affected)
- Customer Service (as the name says, it works as a chat)
- Email writing (like newsletters)
- Tweets (it can copy the style of your favorite content creators)
- Youtube Scripts
This is just the tip of the Ice Berg my friends.
I’ve seen people testing it and being able to:
- Get full and correct codes from simple instructions in natural language -> It’s scaring developers
- Get complete diets and exercise routines after imputing basic personal data -> It’s scaring the fitness industry
- Get psychological and medical advisory -> It’s scaring the health industry
Sure it always has a disclaimer in the answer that “professional advisory is indicated” but it advises anyway.
And sure, it's unlikely that everyone will be replaced, but one copywriter for example will be able to do the work of 30 (basically reviewing and guaranteeing the AI doesn't write any absurds).
In a nutshell, almost all human intellectual services are threatened by it.
You may think about it as a new competitor in all intellectual markets who has instant access to most of the information gathered by humankind (internet) and knows how to articulate it to solve problems within seconds.
This is the new paradigm from now on.
I’m not saying that ChatGPT will do it all by itself. It is very unlikely since all the big techs have their own prototypes. (Funny story, Meta’s Chatbox AI recently stated that Mark Zuckerberg exploits users for money lol).
The point is, ChatGPT has crossed the point of no return. This is the new paradigm now.
After getting used to it, you won’t accept an annoying lawyer to solve your stressful divorce, you will demand your let's say “Open AI Legal Solutions”!
You just interact with it in natural language. It asks you the questions it needs to take care of your case. You answer it gladly, without the constraints of being personally exposed to Mr. Jones (even though the AI looks human and makes you comfortable). It will solve the case for you and no deadlines will be missed.
People are lazy by nature. And that's not a bad thing. They say Napoleon used to choose lazy and smart people to be Generals (while putting the dumb and lazy as foot soldiers and getting rid of the dumb and energetic lol).
Lazy and smart make us creative and open attention span to solve deeper problems.
When we find something that makes our lives easier we marry it forever.
Check how much people loved it:
Here’s how long the following services took to reach 1 million users:
- Twitter -> 720 days
- Facebook -> 300 days
- Instagram -> 75 days
- CHATGPT -> (INCREDIBLE) 5 DAYS
You are not alone. Even Google Search is feeling threatened by this.
Is There Hope?
Regarding the end of many intellectual services, I believe it’s a point of no return. Period.
If AI is able to do a better job than humans, it will do. Humans are the ones developing and demanding it like crazy.
The content creation area, which I started to play around with in the last couple of months, will go through massive change.
And it’s not just ChatGPT. There are dozens of AI softwares already running in the market that will have a boost of demand after the popularization of AI delivered by ChatGPT.
What I believe will happen in the Online Marketing world is (and I’m only speculating):
- People with “more flexible ethics” will flood social media with AI-generated content in the following months.
- They will make some good money out of this (barrier entry is now next to zero and automation is close to infinite)
- More people with “flexible ethics” will arrive late with this game and flood the platforms even more. It will turn social media unsustainable both for creators and audiences.
- The platforms will change their politics quite drastically to avoid 100% robot content.
- Original creators will be more valued, especially those who produce content from direct experience (exposure will be almost a pre-requisite).
- God only knows.
Another reason to be optimistic. I heard from specialists lately that content quality is already way more valued than quantity by the platforms .
Taking YouTube as an example. Mr. Beast (118 mi subscribers) said on Joe Rogan’s Podcast that posting high-quality content 2x a week is way more effective than low quality 2x a day.
Another successful content creator of the platform, Andrew Kirby, recently wrote about this topic. He stated that “consistency isn’t everything”.
To make his point he referred to a YouTuber who has incredibly uploaded 2 million videos but only has 100 thousand subs and low engagement.
The big question is: will the now broadly available advanced AI be able to reach the standard of what a regular consumer considers high quality?
We must notice that advanced AI is coming strong not only for text but for:
- Video (Runway)
- Voice (Murf)
- Social Media Posts (Predis)
- Art (Dall E 2)
- Marketing Automation (Phantombuster)
- Presentation (Beautiful)
- Deep Fake Youtuber (Yes, even that) (Synthesia)
Will tell if a "Frankstein" of those tools be able to create by itself lot's of content that humans label as high quality and therefore, replace creators?
Some people are trying (Youtube Videos), but I have no idea. Only time will tell.
What To Do Then?
I am a half-full-glass kind of person.
But that doesn’t mean a fool.
The best philosophical position in my opinion is of the “rational optimist”.
Rationally, I believe we must accept that everything has changed from now on. It will take some time for people to realize and fight the denial, but it has already started.
Wishful thinking will do no good now.
Those who accept early have a high chance of being part of the solution.
Those who remain in denial are certainly becoming part of the problem later on.
Next steps?
No idea my friend, we will have to find this out together.
One necessary step for sure will be regulation.
Free market person, don’t hate me yet.
This flag is raised by the free speech icon and one of the owners of Open AI and ChatGPT itself, Mr. Elon Musk.
He has a very strong opinion about it and considers it an “existential threat”. If it’s new for you, I recommend digging it a little bit more.
Losing jobs is hard. However, it’s child’s play when compared to the other risks advanced AI presents to human existence itself. Oh, and it’s not “Terminator” fiction anymore.
Elon publicly states that Open AI has the mission to democratize advanced AI to normal people. He believes that the concentration of this kind of power would be very detrimental.
AI has way more potential to end the human race than nuclear weapons, in the tycoon’s opinion.
The big problem here is the gap between technological progress and ethical progress. As the Nobel Prize Winner Daniel Kahneman wisely stated:
“There is going to be massive disruption. Technology is developing very rapidly, possibly exponentially. But people are linear. When linear people are faced with exponential change, they’re not going to be able to adapt to that very easily.”
For the psychologist, not even business and leadership will be immune to this drastic change:
“There are rather frightening scenarios when you’re talking about leadership. Once it’s demonstrably true that you can have an AI that has far better business judgment, say, what will that do to human leadership?”
The future is uncertain. But hasn’t it always been?
Maybe we are facing the challenge of our era. Our grand-grandfathers had World War II, and we have AI.
Ironically, we are again fighting a threat to humans created by humans.
But seeing the bright sight, WWII could only end in mayhem. AI can develop in a very positive way, bringing an unimaginable level of well-being to mankind.
It depends on the ethical choices we do now.
And no matter how small you might think you are, you matter. By keeping yourself honest during this transition and spreading nice and wise ideas, you help nudge the future to a good place.
But hey, I know nothing, just trying to contribute with my 2 cents here.
Let's keep up the smart good work, my friend! The future is (still) ours (lol)
If you want to reach out just DM me on any social, love to make new friends.
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