How to Write in 2023
Feb 10, 2023 2:10 am
Hi,
This week, I'm going back to one of my favourite topics:
The AI-everything trend 🤖💓
As mentioned in a previous newsletter, Microsoft is integrating ChatGPT into its usually-very-boring search engine Bing. It turns out this is happening for desktop users already.
You can already get it to answer certain questions as examples so that you excitedly join Microsoft's mailing list.
(Well played with those email addresses, Gates, you sly old dog)
Amusingly, the example questions have already twisted the search results Bing provides.
You can see the AI response on the right, sure, but the classic search on the left is just news results about the integration of the new feature. You can't really tell how the old Bing would have fared with your question anyway.
Google has obviously been shitting bricks these past few months.
So they finally announced their competitor this week. It's called Bard.
During the announcement demonstration, Bard soon made an error.
The share price of Google's parent company Alphabet fell 9% in value pretty much immediately, as all the wary retirees who invest in safe bets did a facepalm en masse.
This is all fantastic news.
How to write in 2023
As mentioned before, these tools are going to become widespread this year and create bespoke recommendations for you on a daily basis. You're going to use them to design your road trips and create your weekly meal plans.
And people like me are going to use them for work.
For example, as an editor, you have to come up with headlines. It's kind of fun, but also frustrating. Often you can work on a title for ages and still feel it's off. But now, if you need a jumping off point to get the ideas flowing, just get an AI to brainstorm for you. Here's an example:
You can even get them to write your ads for your articles (note how these suggestions all have imperatives, for example):
Let's be honest, you can use them to write entire articles.
And some people do, especially students. (Although some schools are accepting that fact, much like they did with calculators decades ago.)
But if you do try to write a whole essay, you need to be thoughtful and strategic with your prompts or it sounds generic and dry - much like how it's easy to write a crap article on your own.
Plus you have to edit and proof the hell out of what gets churned out, unless you really just don't care. The results are often full of factual mistakes, so you need to check anything AI tells you.
For example, I randomly asked ChatGPT to tell me some inspiring quotes about life by Polish artists and poets...
Yep. For some unknown reason, one of them was by John Lennon.
It's a similar situation with the image generators. If you actually look at the detail of the pictures they make, they're always a bit wrong. Hands are never depicted accurately for some reason.
For example, I put the prompt "procrastination as a human being" into a newer AI platform called Leonardo.ai.
The result looks like lost photographic evidence of some secret disturbing history:
But again, on second look, there's tonnes of stuff in the image that makes no sense at all, so you know it can't be a photo.
Like picture AI, ChatGPT too is like one of those portrait artists who tries their best with the face and then can't be bothered around the rest of the details.
But the point is that these tools will accelerate what you are able to do if you can get your head round them.
Factories full of robots are highly productive, but only if they have skilled human technicians to check they're working properly.
Mark my words:
AI will soon make us all into editors, and the time to get used to the world of prompt writing is now.
Enough techno-proselytising. Thanks for reading.
Perhaps take a nap when you next get the chance?
Adam
Adam Zulawski
TranslatingMarek.com / Procrastilearning.com / More stuff
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