We’ve previously discussed AI Art, but now it’s time to talk about AI Writing! ChatGPT exploded in popularity this year thanks to its easy availability, “chat” features, and a whole lot of controversy. So, let’s dive in!
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT, built by OpenAI, is an AI platform with the capability to have human-like conversations. There have been many AI writing generators out there for many years, but ChatGPT’s conversational model and free use to almost anyone have made it the most popular AI platform on the market in Q1 of 2023.
ChatGPT landed with a BIG splash. It gained its first million users in the first 5 days and reached 100 million users within 2 months. This is one of the fastest-growing platforms of all time.
How Does ChatGPT Work?
Most people in the world are familiar with Google, so we’ll use Google as a comparison to ChatGPT to better explain how it works. We won’t get into the nitty-gritty of the technology (we’re not world-class programmers here), but we’ll explain well enough for you to have a general understanding.
Both Google and ChatGPT take query inputs from users and return results. When a user inputs a query in the search field, Google returns a list of web pages that relate to the search. ChatGPT, however, creates a written response according to the context of the user’s question.
Let’s say you ask for a poem written about the rain falling in Washington State. Google will show you a list of web pages with previously published poems. ChatGPT will use AI generation to write an original poem.
How Does ChatGPT Learn?
To further use the Google comparison…Google has spiders (bots) that crawl information on the internet and save it into a database, or Index. When someone uses Google for a search, Google pulls information from its index to show results.
ChatGPT learns differently. ChatGPT uses a non-supervised pre-training process. That means the software is filled with training data that it can “read” through to understand syntax, conversational language, and gather information on facts and events.
The Limits of ChatGPT
So, from everything we said above, ChatGPT sounds pretty amazing, right? It is, but it has some real drawbacks and limitations. ChatGPT has been known to get simple facts incorrect. ChatGPTs knowledge database only collected knowledge up to the year 2019. So, it’s not going to have any information in its database from 2020 to now.
When it first came to market, teachers and professors across America were worried students would use ChatGPT to write their essays, and they wouldn’t be able to tell. Luckily for the teachers, and unluckily for the students, it’s pretty easy to tell when someone has used ChatGPT to write something.
Words Not Facts
ChatGPT tends to get many facts wrong. But to be fair, it was not created to get facts RIGHT. It was made to understand which word to say next, not to fact-check. So it doesn’t have facts, per se. It just knows what word should come next. Put another way, ChatGPT doesn’t try to write sentences that are true. But it does try to write sentences that are plausible.
Lack of “Human-ness”
While ChatGPT is incredible, it lacks the “human touch” that is required with true copywriting for marketing. Anything written for your company’s marketing requires a knowledge of your ideal client. You need to understand WHO you’re writing to, so you can write in a way that will get people to respond. Whether you want people to purchase your product, or call your phone number, all of your marketing copy should be carefully written toward a specific goal.
ChatGPT lacks the ability to write anything with a specific audience perspective in mind. This is why you should NEVER copy something from ChatGPT, and use it.
How To Use ChatGPT Correctly For Marketing
With all of these pros and cons, how can you responsibly use ChatGPT for marketing?
ChatGPT was made for conversations. Using ChatGPT is an interesting way to help you with writer’s block, and give you some ideas. At its core, ChatGPT is a conversation machine. It wasn’t made to write marketing copy, blogs, articles, or ad campaigns.
You can’t use ChatGPT to do all of your work for you, but it is a great way to help you in the beginning stages of your writing process. Starting a new writing project, whether it’s a blog, article or anything else can be daunting. Just staring at a blank page can be difficult to overcome. Inputting a general prompt into ChatGPT will spit out a very rough first draft. You can use what ChatGPT churns out as an initial outline and launching point for what you’re writing. That’s the best way to use ChatGPT for content creation in your small business.
You’ll still need to use your “marketing brain” to create affective marketing content for your business, but ChatGPT can help get you started if you’re feeling some writer’s block.
About The Author
Kaity Kimball