ChatGPT: The Pitfalls of Using a Language Model to Create Content

It's not human, it's not nuanced, and it's not your original thoughts

AI writing has been around for a while, and I bet you didn’t even know it. Or maybe you did know it, and you didn’t like it much. I have played with many of these tools, like Jasper and other tools that are supposed to make writing easier, and thy were ok. Not bad. Not good. Just OK. When ChatGPT was rolled out a few weeks/months back for the general public, I didn’t expect much from it. It’s actually pretty decent.

But there are some pitfalls you need to be aware of if you’re using ChatGPT to create content. But don’t take it from me. Here’s what ChatGPT said about itself, when I asked it “Write me an article about the pitfalls of using ChatGPT.”

As a language model, ChatGPT is pretty impressive. We can generate text on just about any topic, and make it sound pretty convincing. But, as with any tool, there are certain pitfalls to be aware of when using ChatGPT to create content.

First off, ChatGPT is not a human. So don't expect it to have the same level of creativity, insight, or nuance that a human writer would bring to a piece of content. It's not going to come up with a clever metaphor or turn of phrase on its own. It's just going to spit out words based on what it's been trained on.

Another pitfall is that ChatGPT can be a bit too literal-minded at times. It doesn't always understand the nuances of human communication, and may take things a bit too literally. For example, if you ask ChatGPT to write an article about "the pitfalls of using ChatGPT to create content," it might just give you a list of potential problems, rather than a clever or comedic take on the topic.

Finally, there's the problem of ChatGPT's tendency to repeat itself. Since it's been trained on a vast corpus of text, it has a tendency to recycle the same phrases and sentences over and over again. This can make the content generated by ChatGPT feel a bit stale and unoriginal, which is the opposite of what you want when you're trying to create something new and engaging.

Now, before you all start panicking and thinking that ChatGPT is completely useless, let me remind you that it still has a lot of potential. It's great for generating ideas, writing outlines, and even cranking out the first draft of an article. But, as always, it's a good idea to go over the output with a human editor or proofreader to make sure it makes sense and doesn't sound like a robot.

So, in conclusion, ChatGPT is a powerful tool, but it's not perfect. It's not going to replace human writers anytime soon, but it can certainly make the process of creating content a lot faster and easier. Just remember to keep an eye out for the pitfalls, and you'll be fine.

How’s that for an article created in about 75 seconds, by me just entering a prompt into a flashing sentence box?

I’d give it a 7 seven out of 10. It’s fast, it’s spelled correctly, it’s grammatically correct, and it’s factual. It did what I asked it to do, and I’m glad for that.

On the downside, it doesn’t sound like I write, it’s kind of boring, and it didn’t include any examples or stories.

All in all, it’s a good start to an article I didn’t need to take much time to create.

But if I were to use it every day, I would use it as a starting point, not an ending point. I would not copy and paste it all into an article, I would ask it to find a few points, to do a bit of research first, or to rapidly create some headlines to test, and then I would go deeper into it.

And just for fun, here’s an AI created image.

I used the “surprise me” option, and it used this prompt to create it: “An oil painting portrait of a capybara wearing medieval royal robes and an ornate crown on a dark background.” I have no idea what a capybara is, so I’m sure this is exactly what the prompt was.