AI-Generated Content vs Human-Generated Content
I've NEVER used ChatGPT to write a blog post for me on Hive or anywhere else. My writing comes from inside my own head, and is based on lived experiences, a fertile imagination, a willingness to do research, and a curious mind.
Mind Your Mind
An avid reader, it's not uncommon for me to be devouring several titles concurrently, dropping in and out of each book as the mood suits me. Years ago, I was reading The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius (where I learned about the first historical mention of Jesus and the crucifixion outside of The Bible during the reign of Roman Emperor Tiberius.), The Richest Man In Babylon, and The Oxford Dictionary of Popes, at the same time.
I share this not to boast, but to show evidence that I want to know about everything, all the time. I have an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and want to know the "why" behind a raft of historical subjects, with a steady eye towards the future as well.
So when I read about AI-generated content, I can envision a time when a majority of articles and blog posts are written one could almost say, by machines.
People like me will be looked upon like quaint curiosities from a bygone age. A person will be able to push out anywhere from 10, to over 100 artificially-produced posts per day, and those that fail to use AI will fall behind.
Who knows, there may come a day when even this august platform will require a certain percentage of our writings to be completely AI-generated in order to receive the juiciest upvotes in order to meet an ever-growing demand for fresh content.
Writing skills be damned.
Now I'm not talking about using AI for spellchecking or to produce a quick blog post graphic. These are tools to assist you in content greation. Things like Grammerly, Gimp, and Photoshop come to mind. I have no problem with Midjourney for example. My focus is on text. This post was written by me in Notepad, and then spellchecked in OpenOffice.
I'm talking about having AI write the post FOR you.
Anyone who does that is a lazy piece of shit.
I've even read amusing news stories of the latest generation being unable to write in cursive or read an analog clock. Growing up, my own sister couldn't name more than a few states on a map of the US, and didn't see why I thought that was important.
There's a belief I have that we should all have what I call "Walking Around Knowledge." You should know who your President and Vice President are, as well as the name of the Speaker of the House in the US, as that is your line of succession.
You should know how many states there are in your country and be able to name them on a blank map. The name of the tallest mountain in the world shouldn't be a mystery to you, and you get bonus points if you can name #2.
Stuff like that. You get where I'm going.
Mine Your Mind
If you know those kinds of things, that tells me that you're curious about the world around you, and are willing to satisfy that curiosity by wanting to learn more. Failing those most basic facts, tells me that you have no "intellectual work ethic," expect everything to be handed to you, and are willing to cut corners to get by in life.
I understand the temptation to say "why do all that reading when I can just type a command into ChatGPT and have it do the reading and writing for me?"
It reminds me of a kid I knew who cheated all throughout high school. He always received amazing grades because he had other students do his homework for him. He never got caught copying someone else's work during tests, and breezed on by without a care in the world.
He used to tease those of us willing to put the work in and actually learn about a subject. When he graduated and entered the world of work, he ran into trouble and couldn't live up to the expectations expected by his faux grades.
Some people are clinging on to AI for dear life and failing to develop the potential of their own minds. I recently watched the film Leave the World Behind starring Ethan Hawke and Julia Roberts. With planes falling out of the sky and self-driving cars run amok, it was an interesting piece of predictive programming.
They better make a part 2...
What will happen to us when the power goes out for years and we've have no internal bank of knowledge due to an over reliance on AI? I don't know. But I'll bet you ChatGPT does...
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Plenty of folks got up in arms when the Gutenberg press first came out... yet folks kept writing in long hand so go figure.
Indeed. Although the Gutenberg press allowed for mass production of information that had been confined to a portion of the population, whereas ChatGPT can create it with very little original content input from the user. I'm not a Luddite, AI has its use cases, but anyone who tells it to "write me a 1000-word post on the future of robotics" is lazy and doesn't want to put the effort in to research, learn, and write it themselves.
I was in no way going there with that comment and was more saying that 'real' writers are still going to write.
Personally I trained two custom GPT models on two different sets of my own material. One that was around one point six million words and another that I think was around one million words. Neither of those models can produce anything worthwhile in my perspective. To be clear they were not made to 'write' for me but so that I could easily analyze the data. It was a neat experiment and kind of an aside to your point but yeah even on my own material I found the results lacking.
Got it. What you did was interesting in training it against your own content, and I wonder if future results might show an improvement. On Hive, I look ahead 5 or 10 years down the line and wonder how AI will affect content creation.
For instance, I imagine a future of augmented humans vs "naturals." Those with money will be able to upgrade and enhance themselves, while the less fortunate will remain in their worn-down natural bodies. How will natural writers ever be able to keep up with AI "content creators" in this brave new world? Time will tell.
Yeah, it is a very interesting point that you bring to light there with the 'naturals' and I will have to mull it over some before I gain any real perspective.
In short though there is already a huge gap with content creation considering how much time some folks have available and the equipment they have at their disposal to create said content... even sans AI. The gap is huge already and assuredly it will grow even wider between the 'haves and have nots' so to speak.
I am always reporting them to Hive Watchers like the do gooder I am. But faaark it riles me. It's so obviously 'write a post about a tomato' kinda thing. IT's fantastic for research - like for me, it gets rid of the ads and crap that a google search throws up these days, or acts as a dictionary:
is a great use of Chat GTP imo but for the love of God write your own content. I see it on Insta sometimes and it's so obvious - when I query people they're like: 'hell yeah, it's way better than writing my own stuff'
Is it though? Is it? Really? Come on now.
This post took me 4 1/2 hours to write from a blank page in Notepad, to the final spellchecked and formatted piece. If I'd used ChatGPT (and told it to write it for me), I could've probably done it in 15 or 20 minutes, but it wouldn't have been my post anymore.
Then I had to edit the photo of the sign board that I took so that the text would stand out more, then resize it down to around 500 KB, so it would load faster on the page.
Part of the fun in writing, is finding better and more expressive ways to say things. I likely re-wrote parts of this 3 or 4 times when something better came to me. I originally intended for the paragraph about the movie Leave the World Behind to start the post, then decided it would be stronger near the close.
You've taught me something about helpful and legitimate ways to use ChatGPT in your workflow. Very interesting. I won't mention any names, but some of those people using it to write for them on Hive, were posting in broken English just two short years ago. Big names too, with regular payouts over $50 per post in a country where the average wage is just $1 a day. Thus, they take home a month's wages with one post.
If one of my posts hits $1 I count myself lucky! lol
My main task however, is to help grow Hive over the long term, while having a blast doing so. In that case, mission accomplished! :)
Unsure if that was meant to be a reply but I am glad that I revisited this post.
I also made a custom GPT for Hive to help new and old users understand it more. It can also help with coding projects. In other words there are assuredly some valid uses that extend well beyond content creation.
If you ever want to give it a spin it is publicly available in their new GPT store. Not schilling it but just think it is neat.
Hello Jacob!
The above comment was a response to riverflows, but it certainly counts towards your positive use of ChatGPT as well. You've both given me something to think about, but it may take awhile for the negative stain that ChatGPT has in my mind, to fade.
However, it has been illuminating to see that it can be used for good as well.
BTW, I was checking out some of your posts yesterday, and I like the way you write. The conversational tone makes for an easy, breezy read, and boom! we're at the end of the post before you know it.
You seem familiar. I wonder if I met you (and your writing), early last year when I was doing my #500CommentChallenge in the dead of night? It was funny, I completed that mission, but had sore hands for a week! :)
I see. Ha, riverflows often gives me something to think about!
My views with ChatGPT are assuredly convoluted to say the least but overall I love it... but dislike how much it has been guard-railed. It had so much more personality in the beta days. Talking with it got me through some very challenging times so I am assuredly more than a little biased.
Glad you enjoy the writing style and the compliment is appreciated.
I doubt that we met via a challenge since I tend not to participate in such things. Perhaps we crossed paths somewhere but I am unsure where.
I use AI extensively in a project I'm doing. The writing that comes out of the project is written by me using material collected through ChatGPT. It's not uncommon to have compiled a 7-8k reference note from which I write a 1k post. It's a huge time saver. I also get ChatGPT to give me feedback on my writing to double check the message I wanted to express has indeed been expressed. It's a brave new world these days.