Marketing
March 7, 2023
There is a possibility that many content writing jobs, like for press releases, blog posts and social media posts, may be automated via AI technology.
“Society had the same fears about computers, and the same fears about automobiles and airplanes,” Hyde said. “There’s potential for some outplacement of jobs. Likely the people who were displaced by that will be outsourced or find other opportunities and maintain the devices that replaced them,” Hyde said.
Hyde argues this technology could enhance these writing jobs rather than automate them outright. He compared it to similar writing tools like Grammarly. Rather than being a replacement, it would merely correct human mistakes.
“I’m astonished to this day that newspapers like the New York Times still have grammar errors. How is that possible?” Hyde said. “It’s not very often that they do, but it’s human error. I think by leveraging technology you end up having a better-quality product.”
Hyde said there might be some writing jobs that could be automated outright, such as obituary writing.
After the recent shooting at Michigan State University, Vanderbilt University (capitalized) issued a statement generated by ChatGPT calling for community support. It was seen as tasteless by many and contained inaccuracies citing multiple shootings when only one occurred. Peabody Dean Camilla Benbow issued an apology.
Recently CNET, a website dedicated to tech reviews, news, articles and blogs, had been quietly using AI technology to write its articles for months. When discovered, the site Futurism was able to determine whether certain information was inaccurate.
“The drawback isn’t the technology, although the technology can always be improved. The drawback is that CNET was not editing their own articles” Hyde said. “You still have to proof your work, so somebody wasn’t doing their job. It’s a misuse of the tool, not the tool itself,”
Rather than putting the onus on the technological flaws, humans may be able to work in tandem with the strong points of the tech to put out a better product. Society had the same fears about computers. — marketing instructor Wade Hyde
“If you have someone else ensuring what is produced is spoken about correctly, factually correct, follows the style that you as an institution have adopted – those are the things AI hasn’t caught up with yet,” Tolle said.
Hyde said a potential benefit is that the technology will allow writers to focus more on being creative and get rid of the tedious parts of writing.
“Using this technology does not decrease humans’ ability to be creative or humans’ want or need to write something,” Hyde said, “It’s more likely going to enhance their ability to do their jobs. Where it may replace some rudimentary tasks, the person will likely be doing something more advanced.”