The drumbeats of AI writing’s threat to steal writing jobs thundered even more loudly for writers during Q1 2023, as a key publisher warned that job loss for some writers — due to automation — is a forgone conclusion at this point.
Meanwhile, the WGA scrambled to safeguard the Hollywood screenwriters it represents by banning the use of writing automation by its members.
And teachers at the K-12 and higher education levels responded with a new workaround, designed to make it tougher for students to use AI for their writing.
But despite those stopgap measures, AI’s impact on the writing world continued to advance.
AI writing wunderkind ChatGPT — already a worldwide sensation — got an upgrade during Q1.
And a study found that to the ire of many educators, 89% of students admitted that they used ChatGPT to help with their homework.
Here are details on those and other stories that helped shape the AI writing industry in Q1 2023:
*German Publisher Sees AI Replacing Journalists: Turns-out all that hogwash about AI never being used to take journalist jobs is just that.
Mathias Doepfner, CEO, Axel Springer, has advised writers on staff that AI writers like ChatGPT may soon best journalists currently engaged in basic information gathering.
Observes Doepfner: “Artificial intelligence has the potential to make independent journalism better than it ever was – or simply replace it.
“Understanding this change is essential to a publishing house’s future viability.
“Only those who create the best original content will survive.”
While stark, Doepfner’s transparency is seen by many as a welcome counterpoint to statements from other publishers adopting AI — who are ostensibly starry-eyed.
Many of those say they envision a world in which AI writing can be completely adopted by a publishing or news organization — sans the loss of a single writing or editing position.
Rumor has it, it is the same world in which pigs can fly.
*WGA Attempts to Protect Movie Screenwriters from ChatGPT: Fearing that the proverbial writing-on-the-wall has already been written by a robot, the Writers Guild of America has adopted new regulations designed to thwart the use of AI — including ChatGPT — in scriptwriting.
Observes writer Melissa Murphy: “While the program has its downsides, ChatGPT is a stunningly sophisticated chatbot that can spit-out coherent texts in seconds.
“Deadline used it to craft a pitch for a Mad Max reboot.
“What the chatbot spit-out was a detailed paragraph outlining the premise of a show that — while needing some tweaking and development to have a chance — was disconcertingly doable.”
The only fly-in-the-ointment with the WGA’s ban: By changing a few words and phrases, it’s extremely easy to disguise an AI-written script as a script written by a human.
*Hundreds of AI-Written Books Flood Amazon: The inevitable has occurred: Hundreds of books auto-generated by ChatGPT are now vying for buyers on Amazon.
So far, close to 300 AI-generated books — on titles ranging from self-help to children’s fiction — have popped-up on the bookseller, according to writer Anthony Cuthbertson.
Adds Cuthbertson: “Due to the nature of ChatGPT and many authors’ failure to disclose they have used it, it is nearly impossible to get a full accounting of how many e-books may be written by AI.”
*ChatGPT Gets an Upgrade: While many are still reeling at the often stupefying capabilities of ChatGPT, OpenAI — the tool’s maker — has already come out with an upgrade.
Observes Sam Altman, CEO, OpenAI: “I don’t want to make it sound like we have solved reasoning or intelligence — which we certainly have not.
“But this is a big step forward from what is already out there.”
Some early adopters of the upgraded ChatGPT say they have seen the difference, indicating the tool seems smarter and more versatile than the previous version.
Others gripe that the upgraded tool is still imperfect, still prone to making up facts and can on occasion still blurt-out text that some may find offensive.
But for fans of AI writing, the upgrade is nothing but good news.
Currently, the software upgrade is only available to ChatGPT Plus users.
They pay $20/month for the Plus service — rather than using the original software, which is still free.
*On the Horizon: More Powerful, Enhanced Memory for ChatGPT: If things go well, ChatGPT users could someday use a version of the tool that can hold about 50 pages of text in memory while you work with it, according to writer Kyle Wiggers.
That enhancement would be profound, enabling someone working with ChatGPT to change, edit and refine a piece of text over and over again without worrying that the tool might forget what it’s working on and start spitting-out nonsense phrases.
Observes Wiggers of the software underlying ChatGPT: “With a bigger ‘memory,’ GPT-4 should be able to converse relatively coherently for hours — several days, even — as opposed to minutes.”
The magic keeps coming.
*ChatGPT Integration Coming for MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Teams: Microsoft continues to capitalize on its investment in wunderkind ChatGPT, most recently announcing plans to integrate it into many of its key products.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft plans to take months to roll-out the upgrade across its customer base — opting to ‘go slow’ and work with a few choice customers at a time in an effort to iron-out any kinks.
Observes writer Tom Dotan: “The main feature the company will be releasing is what it calls the Microsoft 365 Copilot.
“It will be embedded inside its Microsoft 365 suite and allow users — through natural-language inputs — to generate documents, presentations and original text.”
*89% of Students Using ChatGPT: An astounding 89% of students readily admit using ChatGPT to help with homework, according to a new report from Study.com.
Observes writer Chris Westfall: “A brave new world is already here, with implications for cheating and plagiarism, to be sure.
“But an even deeper implication points to the very nature of learning itself, when ChatGPT has become a super-charged repository for what is perhaps the most human of all inventions: the synthesis of our language.”
Other insights from the study:
~ 48% of students admitted to using ChatGPT for an at-home test or quiz
~53% used ChatGPT to write an essay
~22% have used ChatGPT to write an outline for a paper
Observes Arvind Krishna, CEO, IBM: “I think (practical AI use) is here and now.”
*Teachers Weigh-In on How They’re Wrangling ChatGPT: Educators fed-up with students using ChatGPT and similar AI writing programs to auto-generate homework essays and similar assignments are coming up with workarounds to thwart that cheating.
Observes Brett Bogelsinger, a ninth-grade English teacher in Pennsylvania: “Many teachers are planning more writing for the classroom and more writing by hand.”
Interestingly, others believe that students may be less liable to cheat if it’s clearly explained to them why original writing is so important to the development of individual thought.
Observes Gina Parnaby, a twelfth-grade English teacher in Atlanta. “The best solution I’ve come up with is talking explicitly with students about how writing is thinking made visible.
“Just like different translators will emphasize different things in their translations of the same work, or different mathematicians will work through problems differently, our unique voices and perspectives matter.”
That’s a compelling argument for some — until it’s midnight, you have an essay due the next morning and ChatGPT beckons, offering to spit-out out a nearly polished draft of your essay in a matter of seconds.
*Claude: AI-Writer for the Super-Sensitive is Released: ChatGPT users who succumb to ‘the vapors’ or similar when the tool auto-generates an off-color remark or worse may want to try-out Claude.
It’s an AI writer specifically designed to usher-forth wholly antiseptic, pristine, text creations — which ideally wouldn’t hurt a fly.
The downside: AI writers like Claude that are shackled by a significant amount of censoring routines tend to be less creative, given that the AI writers are essentially programmed to err on the side of censorship concerning anything that anyone under any circumstance and in any mood might consider offensive.
*AI Big Picture: IBM CEO: AI Will Take-Over “Clerical White-Collar Work”: Apparently, the dystopian future when flesh-and-blood types will be competing with AI alternatives is a bit closer than some of us have imagined.
Krishna’s theory: AI is very good at automating processes in the enterprise, adding that “there are hundreds of such processes inside every enterprise.
“So I do think clerical white collar work is going to be able to be replaced by this.”
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–Joe Dysart is editor of RobotWritersAI.com and a tech journalist with 20+ years experience. His work has appeared in 150+ publications, including The New York Times and the Financial Times of London.