As much of the thinking world struggled to grasp the short and long-term implications of ChatGPT and similar AI, the tech continued to evolve in Q3 at an often breakneck pace.
News editors and writers began to experience first-hand what it was like to lose a job to AI.
And news outlets, Google and others simultaneously found even more new ways to automate the writing and production of news.
Still other writers and editors grinned uneasily as new ‘helper’ tools emerged that could automate the writing of press releases — or leave even more editing tasks to robots.
Meanwhile, the proliferation of AI-written books grew so intense, Amazon found itself shammed into removing books by a robot that were created to rip-off the byline of an established author.
Yes, for writers and editors, it was an invigorating time to be alive in the new world of automated writing.
And yes, for writers and editors, it was an unnerving time to be alive in the new world of automated writing.
Here are the Top Ten Stores of Q3, 2023 that best documented that trend:
*How AI Took My Copywriting Job: Writer Graham Isador explains that once ChatGPT showed-up at his corporate copywriting gig, it was only a matter of time before his job was history.
Introducing ChatGPT to the team, Isador’s boss explained that copywriters would no longer be needed for writing.
Instead, they were assigned to simply enter prompts into the wildly popular autowriter ChatGPT to auto-generate copy.
The dream of Isador’s boss: Double the staff’s output with AI.
Observes Isador: “Suddenly, my day-to-day was no longer writing ads.
“It was editing the work of a robot.
“The meeting was a come-to-God moment — I felt like a cow being asked to collaborate with a butcher.
The uphshot?
“When my contract came up, it was not renewed,” Isador observes.
*Australian News Outlet Cranking-Out 3,000 AI-Generated Articles-a-Week: News Corp is now among the growing list of media companies that are all-in on creating AI-generated news stories.
The Guardian reports the news outlet is spitting out about 3,000 AI-generated news stories each week that are focused on weather, traffic reports and fuel prices.
The news stories appear in 75 news publications across Australia — all owned by the media goliath.
For writers, the unblinking automated efficiency driving the creation of the news stories can be intimidating.
For example: Currently, production of the 3,000 stories/week is overseen by four staff members at News Corp.
That works-out to about 750 stories-each-week squired — with the help of AI – by one person at News Corp.
And on a daily basis, that means just one person — with the help of AI — is producing 170 stories for News Corp.
Not bad for a day’s work.
*Automated Opinion Writing As-a-Service: Now a Thing: Wired Reports that new tech has emerged to auto-generate tweets, articles and Web sites to counter an opposing viewpoint.
Specifically, a Web site dubbed ‘CounterCloud’ is currently churning-out text and tweets designed to discredit Russian propaganda.
There’s a lot of hand-wringing in the article over the fact that AI is being used to quash an opposing — and many might believe dangerous — Russian ‘perspective.’
But the real takeaway here is that any thinking person tracking AI writing knew long ago that it was only a matter of time before AI would be tasked to duke it out with opposing viewpoints.
More to the point: As an American, I don’t have a problem with automation designed to eviscerate anti-U.S. lies promulgated by a gangster-led political machine that masquerades as a government.
AI Power.
To the people.
*Claude2 to ChatGPT: Hold My Thesaurus!: Writer Bijin Jose believes AI writer Claude2 leaves ChatGPT in the dust.
Some of Jose’s rationale:
~Claude2 can work with up to 75,000 words as a frame-of-reference for writing what you want — compared to about 4,000 words offered by ChatGPT.
~Claude2 is much faster and more efficient when it comes to generating ideas, helping with writing, editing and copywriting and summarization, according to Jose.
~Claude2’s overall performance also seems faster than ChatGPT: “While this is entirely subjective, in our experience, Claude2 was faster in processing responses,” according to Jose.
Bottom: Reports like these inspire all makers of autowriting engines to become ever more competitive — a solid, ongoing win for users.
*Unleashing Your Inner Grammar Snob: In-Depth Guide — Best AI Editing Tools 2023: MarkTechPost offers a great rundown of the top tools you can use for checking grammar, spelling, punctuation and the like.
Besides well-known choices, including Grammarly and ProWritingAid, the guide also takes a look at special-use editing tools.
Sapling, for example, is dedicated to helping you write when you’re using any messaging service.
And Trinka AI specializes in AI editing help for technical and academic writers.
*Extra! Extra! Google Shops Auto-News-Writer to Media: Google is reportedly hawking a new AI writer specifically designed to auto-generate news stories.
The tool, dubbed ‘Genesis,’ works by ingesting data it finds on the Web and then spitting back news stories based on that info.
Theoretically, news organizations using the tool — along with other commonly available automation tools — can, for example:
~Record a State of the Union speech made by President Biden, summarize his key points and then spit-out a news summary of the speech — including quotes from Biden — in a matter of minutes
~Record an earnings call made by any number of businesses and corporations, summarize the key points and then spit-out a news summary of the speech — including quotes from the company exec squiring the call — in a matter of minutes
~Source a video of a county commission meeting freshly posted on the Web, summarize the key points made by various commissioners and then spit-out a news summary of the speech — including quotes from one or more commissioners at the meeting — in a matter of minutes
Essentially, as with most AI, the use of Genesis by news outlets would only be limited — to a great degree — by the imagination of the editors and journalists using it.
*AI Written Press Releases: Options for PR Pros: Roxhill Media offers an up-close look at the approach various AI writing services use to spit-out a press release after they’re prompted to do so by a user.
Featured in this wrap-up are press releases autowritten by Canva, ChatGPT, EINPresswire, TinyWow and CopyAI.
Bottom line: The piece does a good job of making clear that the kind of press release you auto-generate with AI can vary markedly — depending on the AI writer you select.
Currently, Toolify.ai offers links to 240 services that offer AI-automated writing.
*Amazon Shammed Into Removing Rip-Off Books: Retail goliath Amazon has agreed to remove books falsely claiming to be written by an established author — but only after being shammed on Twitter.
Initially, Amazon refused to remove the books from its online store after author Jane Friedman complained to the retailer that she had never written the books and that the works were frauds.
Observes writer Jason Nelson: “After she took her case to Twitter — earning the backing of the Authors Guild — Amazon relented early this morning.”
Amazon: Bringing new meaning to the phrase, ‘the-ends-justify-the-means.’
*Workers to AI: You Had Me at ‘Auto-Generated Performance Review:’ Despite the fact that AI is eliminating white-collar jobs, nearly 40% of those workers are still keen to use the tech in their day-to-day communications, according to a new study.
The survey — from Workhuman — also found that 40% of managers plan to use generative AI to help them evaluate staff.
Observes writer Sabrina Ortiz: “Already, many productivity platforms such as Slack, Otter.AI, Gmail, and Grammarly are incorporating AI into their platform to provide workers with the capabilities to generate emails and messages, schedule and summarize meetings — and more.”
Big Picture AI: Professors Are So Yesterday — Harvard’s Newest Instructor is an AI Chatbot: Students taking an ‘Intro to Computer Science’ course at Harvard in September will have a chatbot similar to ChatGPT as their teacher.
Says David Malan, a professor who has taught the course at Harvard, coded as ‘CS50:’ “Our own hope is that, through AI, we can eventually approximate a one-to-one teacher/student ratio for every student in CS50, as by providing them with software-based tools that, 24/7, can support their learning at a pace and in a style that works best for them individually.”
In the olden days, it was called ‘phoning-it-in.’
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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.