With ChatGPT, we’ll never again know for sure if the writing we’re reading springs from the human soul — or is just a bit of machined text churned-out by a collection of chips and code.
Granted, ChatGPT is a wondrous phenomena.
Prompted with just a snippet of text from a human operator, the software can effortlessly auto-generate extremely fluid, college-level prose that gets-to-the-point, stays-on-point and generally produces extremely usable copy.
Plus, with just a bit of tweaking, ChatGPT is also able to write in virtually any writing voice you can imagine.
Even better: Once you get the hang of using ChatGPT, you’ll discover you can also have a ‘conversation’ with the tool to edit, refine, expand upon — and more — the initial writing the tool has produced for you.
In fact, given that ChatGPT is so powerful — and future upgrades of the tool are expected to be even more potent — it’s difficult to imagine any writer aware of the tech who is:
~Not already using ChatGPT
~At least weighing the possibility of integrating the tool into day-to-day writing.
A few examples of why ChatGPT is virtually irresistible to pro writers: Using the tool, writers can paste-in dialog they’re working on for a short story, novel or script and simply Prompt the tool to:
~Rewrite this dialog to be funnier
~Rewrite this dialog to be more dramatic
~Rewrite this dialog to allow Marty’s view to seem more convincing than Mary’s view
As anyone who has tried ChatGPT will attest, the tool dutifully follows such Prompts.
And in every case, ChatGPT brings home the revised prose you’re seeking — or at least gets you closer to it.
Similarly, a pro writer using ChatGPT can paste-in a 750-word description of a shoot-out in a Western and Prompt the tool to:
~Rewrite this shoot-out description with more gripping action words
~Rewrite this shoot-out description emphasizing the little boy’s fear of being killed
~Expand this shoot-out description by adding a scene in which the mother scoops-up the child in her arms. The scene should also include a moving description of the mother’s devastation — which also includes a flashback to ten years prior, when she watched her brother die in a similar shootout
Again, ChatGPT will follow these requested changes with precision.
Plus, a pro fiction writer could easily paste-in the first 1,000 words of a new chapter in a novel and Prompt ChatGPT to:
~Rewrite the beginning of this new chapter to feature an unexpected plot twist
~Rewrite the beginning of this new chapter to include the introduction of a new character you make up that you think will enhance the story
~Rewrite the beginning of this new chapter to eliminate a character who should not be in the story (ChatGPT’s choice)
Meanwhile, pro nonfiction writers also can enjoy endless possibilities with ChatGPT, including using Prompts like:
~Write ten headlines for this article that are snappier and more engaging
~Expand on paragraph three of this article, exploring the pros and cons of the assertion made in the paragraph
~Rewrite this article in a more conversational, upbeat tone
In essence, ChatGPT’s ability to rework, edit, polish, massage (choose your additional preferred verb) is to a great degree only limited by the kind of Prompt or Prompts you come up with to steer its enormous power in the direction you’re seeking.
And those Prompts for ChatGPT are, in turn, only limited — in a very real sense — by the writer’s imagination.
In many ways, this new opportunity for collaboration between artist and machine is an incredible win-win for both writer and reader.
Using ChatGPT, there’s a good-to-excellent chance that a writer can work with the tool to generate a work of fiction that is much better — on every level — than what could have been achieved by the human being alone.
As for the reader: Getting a chance to read a work of fiction or nonfiction that is better and/or more informative, more moving, etc. — especially if the reader has no knowledge that a machine helped forge that outcome — is not even a choice.
It’s what we readers instinctively prefer.
Like moths to the flame, readers instinctively gravitate to works that offer the greatest illumination.
But even though works of fiction and nonfiction are generally destined to turn-out better with the use of ChatGPT and similar AI writers, there’s a robbery going on here.
Why?
Those who write professionally will tell you that one of the pure joys of writing is the unexpected moment when something new, original and completely unexpected crystallizes in your mind and soul as you’re writing.
In these moments, your fingers fly across the keyboard, furtively grabbing at what’s emerging from the haze of your subconscious and unconscious.
And then, you experience real joy as you capture — in clear, insightful prose — what at first was a dazzle on the horizon just beyond consciousness.
Easily one of the most wondrous aspects of that moment of inspiration — as you reread the words that you’ve just typed, sometimes accompanied with a bit of awe — is your realization that you — as the writer — are really not quite sure exactly where that burst of insight, inspiration, new plot twist, etc. came from.
Sure: There are plenty of neuroscientists who are glad to step-up and explain — with a mixture of scientific fact and scientific theory — the physical mechanics behind how flashes of inspiration come to be.
But for those of us who experience these bolts of sunlight as we write, the moment is also mystical — a moment that somehow fuses the mind, body, heart and soul into a spasm of creation that often gives birth to something quite stunning.
Since the dawn of writing, it is these moments — captured, reworked, edited, polished, etc. into a final work of prose — that has enabled both writer and reader to experience and delight in a shared understanding of something that is new and original.
And in the best of written works, that polish of the new and original enables a writer and reader to go beyond simply sharing a ‘communication.
Instead, they share a higher level of intellectual interplay — a ‘communion.’
Readers are instantly aware of this communion when they are moved and stirred in extremely unexpected ways by words on a page.
And with the best of written works, it’s that communion — an intimate, shared and very human experience — that they’ll never forget.
Essentially, it’s a unique experience that drives people to exclaim after reading a great book or article: “You HAVE to read this book,” or “You HAVE to read this piece in The New Yorker.”
Sadly, despite all of ChatGPT’s wonders — and I’m always among the first to acknowledge those — that wondrous communion between writer and author will never be the same — now that ChatGPT and similar AI writers exist in the world.
Because no matter how creative, how witty, how wondrous and/or how mind-boggling a written work that’s produced after January 2023 happens to be (the moment when ChatGPT popped-up on the radar of people in virtually every walk of life), readers who are aware of ChatGPT and similar will always have that nagging thought after they finish-off a new, incredibly powerful, original work:
“Wow, that was a great piece.
“But how much of that writing was actually created by the writer — and how much of it was actually created by ChatGPT?”
Essentially: With the emergence of ChatGPT and related AI tools, there will never again be a pure communion between writer and reader.
ChatGPT and other AI writers has stolen that experience from the writer and reader.
And that unique communion will never be returned to them again — for the rest of time as we know it.
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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.