Can YOU tell the difference between articles produced by ‘job-eating’ AI ChatGPT and a copywriter?
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AI bot ChatGPT has fascinated more than 100 million users around the world – as well as sparking controversy about its ability to take human jobs.
But can it actually outperform human writers?
We asked an experienced copywriter and ChatGPT to do exactly the same tasks – writing 200 words on how to be happy, how to be cyber secure and how to make a summer salad.
Our copywriter- who has worked for major international brands and several leading marketing agencies, commented that he preferred when technology wasn’t trying to take his job.
The impact of ‘generative’ AI such as ChatGPT on the jobs market has been widely debated since the chatbot launched in November 2022.
The OECD – Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development – forecasts that 10-15 percent of jobs will be lost due to tech in the next 20 years.
Could copywriters be pput out of a job by ChatGPT? (Shutterstock)
ChatGPT reached 100 million users in two months after launch (for comparison, TikTok took nine months to do so) and has sparked a wave of interest and investment in the technology, which ‘trains’ AI bots on large amounts of information to produce life-like responses.
It’s been predicted to impact jobs across fields as diverse as copywriting and the legal profession – and the AI chatbot has already passed multiple exams including law exams at the University of Minnesota.
Prompt – write a 50-word summary of the film ‘Avatar 2’
Can you tell which of these have the human touch? (Supplied)
Professionals are already using the technology in everything from software development to creative roles, says Tim Olsen, Director at recruitment company Hays, specializing in technology.
Olsen says that thus far, most creatives are using ChatGPT to ‘supercharge’ their own creative work – rather than relying on it.
Prompt – write a joke about lettuce
Which one of these is the work of a human? (Supplied)
Prompt – write a 50-word biography of James Corden
Which one of these was written by human hand? (Supplied)
He says, “Many professionals and creatives alike are already using ChatGPT as the starting point for their work, such as making email subject lines more impactful, generating tailored workout plans, or debugging code during software development.
“This doesn’t mean they are reliant on ChatGPT, while technology can help perform simple tasks, humans will continue to offer skills which make them indispensable.”
Prompt – write 200 words about how to be happy – but which is the human response?
(A) Guide to how to be happy – but is it a human or a machine writing here? (Supplied)
(B) Did a human write this, or a machine? (Supplied)
Olsen believes that while ChatGPT can generate convincing sounding copy, it actually offers an opportunity for humans to ‘stand out’ by writing accurate, entertaining copy which is more ‘human’ than the words generated by the bot.
Such chatbots have inherent limitations when it comes to accuracy, though.
Google’s rival to ChatGPT, Bard, made an error worth $100billion in February when it made a mistake during a tech demo.
It said the James Webb Space Telescope took the first-ever photos of a planet outside of our solar system, which is incorrect.
The error drew the attention of astronomers on Twitter, and the limitations of AI in answering questions in general.
Some also pointed out how confident the AI was in its incorrect answer, and how many would just take what it said as fact without doing fact-checking of their own.
Alphabet share price lost roughly 9 percent in trading after the error.
The mistake came just two weeks after the tech-giant announced its massive, $10billion, investment into OpenAI, making its start in the field anything but auspicious.
Prompt – write 200 words on how to be more cyber secure, as an individual rather than a company. But which is the human response?
(A) Did a person write this, or has it been generated by AI? (Supplied)
(B) Has this copy got the human touch, or was it written by a machine? (Supplied)
Microsoft also had factual errors in a demo of its ChatGPT-powered version of Bing, researchers have said.
The software fabricated details about bars in Mexico, in response to a question from Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President, Modern Life, Search, and Devices.
The software quoted wrong numbers and non-existent figures when asked to summarise financial documents.
Prompt: describe how to make a summer salad, starting with a personal anecdote about how you discovered it
(A) The writer discovered this salad while in Greece – but is the writer human or AI? (Supplied)
(B) Is this a human response to a salad, or an AI-generated one? (Supplied)
Olsen says that the current limitations of the generative AI may mean that it poses an opportunity for forward-thinking professionals – who can use it as a crutch rather than replacing their jobs.
Olsen says, ‘There’s still a human element required to properly leverage and govern tools like ChatGPT, and the technology hasn’t yet reached maturity. However, at a time when staff shortages are still being acutely felt across many industries, the ability to amplify productivity at little-to-no cost is hard to ignore.
‘Rather than taking jobs, it may be the case that those who use – or at least have an awareness of – ChatGPT and other comparable AI tools, will simply have an advantage over those who don’t.’
Answers: From the top, the answers are top, bottom, top, and then B, B, B. Did you get them right?