There’s been lots of recent news coverage about the writer’s guild striking, with one of the main issues being protections against the potential impact of AI tools like ChatGPT on the profession of writing. Lots of predictions have already been made around which professions ChatGPT is going to kill off, with writing one of the most talked about. But is that really true? I think reality will be more nuanced than that. Here are four ways I imagine AI will evolve – not kill off – the profession.
Idea Generation
Anybody who’s been writing for any amount of time, whether personally or professionally, knows the feeling of staring at a blank page, unable to overcome the writer’s block plaguing them. Tools like ChatGPT have the potential to make writer’s block a thing of the past. Their capacity for idea generation is insane. Want a list of SEO-friendly headers on a specific topic? Ask, and ye shall receive. Not happy with the list, and want 10 new ones? It’s all within your control.
Proofreading and Quality Assurance
AI tools can offer powerful recommendations on how to improve things like spelling and grammar. Perhaps more interestingly, they can also help with euphemisms and language-specific expressions, which is something that conventional grammar-check tools can’t do.
Another useful application of AI tools like ChatGPT is to rewrite paragraphs or articles with a different tone. Watch this. Let’s take this dry, wordy paragraph about options investing:
Stock options investing involves the purchase or sale of contracts that give investors the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a specific stock at a predetermined price within a specified timeframe. These contracts, known as options, provide investors with the opportunity to profit from price movements in the underlying stock without actually owning it. Call options allow investors to buy stocks, while put options enable selling. The potential benefits of stock options investing include leveraging capital, hedging against risk, and generating income through premiums. However, it also carries risks such as the potential for loss of the premium paid, time decay, and the complexity of options strategies. Successful stock options investing requires understanding market dynamics, careful analysis, and risk management to make informed decisions and maximize potential gains while minimizing potential losses.
Plugging this paragraph into ChatGPT and asking it to reword it for a child, we get the following:
Stock options are like special contracts that let people make deals about buying or selling specific stocks. These contracts give them the choice to buy or sell stocks at a certain price, but they don’t have to if they don’t want to. Some contracts let them buy stocks, and others let them sell. People use these contracts to try and make money when the prices of stocks go up or down. It’s important to know that these contracts can be tricky and might make people lose money if they don’t understand them well. So, it’s like a game where people need to be careful and know what they’re doing to win and not lose their money.
Still a big paragraph, but it’s clearly been simplified way down. This is a powerful tool when it comes to personalizing content to suit the reading style of a particular audience.
Copywriters as Brand Auditors
One thing AI can’t easily replicate is the human element of brand voice. It can’t easily synthesize all of the various inputs that come together to form a brand, and it can’t replicate the creativity, emotional intelligence, and strategic insight that professional copywriters bring to the table.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: AI tools like ChatGPT represent the new floor of professional copywriting; not its ceiling or future.
Movement Up the Complexity Spectrum
One area that AI will likely replace humans in copywriting is for simple, repetitive jobs that require minimal human touch. As a result, human copywriters will increasingly be called upon to work on more complex jobs that are outside the scope of AI to handle easily.
Wrapping it Up
The impact of AI tools like ChatGPT on copywriters is more nuanced than many predictions suggest. Instead of killing off the profession, AI has the potential to enhance it in several ways, from eliminating writer’s block to facilitating effective translation into other languages. The copywriters who are best positioned to win in their field in the coming years are the ones who recognize AI for what it is: not a threat, but just another tool in their endless pursuit to efficiently and effectively create content that their clients and readers love.
