Below are a few thoughts about ChatGPT from copywriter Jacob McMillen. In essence, language models can't perform miracles on their own, but in capable hands, they're great productivity tools.
I've been using ChatGPT a lot over the last few months.
Here are three thoughts about using the software that I think you will find helpful... or at least interesting.
1. Using ChatGPT is like working with a new copywriter.
If you've ever worked with a new copywriter before, it's a lot like this:
Their line by line writing sounds decent enough.
If you give them a topic, they can go find some ideas and concepts that attach to that topic well.
They are really good at completing short tasks when provided with really clear, straightforward directions.
They have literally NO understanding of the actual objective for anything they write (or how to complete that objective).
The longer and more complex the task, the more severely their work misses the mark.
That is ChatGPT in a nutshell.
2. ChatGPT is amazing at these two things.
It's an unbelievably good outline generator.
ChatGPT writes better outlines than 99% of writers I've ever hired or worked with.
Previous GPT tools did a reasonably good job of harnessing GPT's outline potential, but ChatGPT has completely dwarfed them by comparison.
I don't even try to write my own outlines anymore. I will still tweak them, and sometimes I go in a very different direction, but getting the initial outline from ChatGPT is a mandatory part of my writing process now, and I think it should be for you too.
ChatGPT is also really good at writing individual blog sections up to 4 paragraphs long.
I like to write a descriptive subheader, add some context about the blog post, and then ask GPT to finish the blog section for me.
Sometimes I'll pull sentences or paragraphs directly from the output. More often, I'll use it as a springboard to more quickly come up with what I want to say in that section.
It's extremely useful in both cases, and again, this is already how I was using previous GPT tools, but ChatGPT is notably better for this use case as well.
3. ChatGPT has not fundamentally changed anything about my business.
ChatGPT doesn't fundamentally change how I write. It just speeds up and assists existing parts of my workflow.
My brainstorm "muscle" is probably beginning to atrophy, but bemoaning that feels incredibly similar to when people bemoaned the use of calculators in place of mental math.
ChatGPT also doesn't change who is hiring me.
ChatGPT can't write an effective sales page or longform article. ChatGPT can't rank for a competitive search term. ChatGPT can't create or audit a comprehensive content marketing strategy. ChatGPT can't analyze a freelance writer's business and give them the specific advice that takes them from $10k/month to $20k/month in one quarter.
If you are just getting started as a writer, it might have an impact on who is hiring you.
The people who turned to copywriters to help them with minor, miscellaneous writing tasks that didn't drive any profit are probably trying ChatGPT instead of hiring new copywriters.
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At the end of the day, despite ChatGPT becoming a household name virtually overnight... not much has changed.
I'm not saying that to bury my head in the sand. I've been closely watching this space for nearly two years now, investing in it, working with AI companies as sponsors, and even working on some of these tools behind the scenes.
AI will have a massive role in the future... and it's possible that AI very simply IS the future.
But at this point... not much has changed.
That's my experience anyway.
As a personal anecdote, I used ChatGPT for the first time last week to help with some lines of code.
In short, I needed a simple way to program the behavior of a link depending on the device used (open in browser / open in app.) And although I expected that to be a common use case, I didn't like the solutions proposed on StackOverflow, or they were not exactly what I needed. I sensed there was a better way to handle that, but I couldn't find it.
So, I asked ChatGPT, giving it instructions as clearly as I could. And it worked. It gave me a different solution I hadn't seen, which worked the way I intended it to. Then, it wasn't a simple copy-and-paste job, I had to tweak a few lines of code to make it fit for purpose, but it did save me a lot of time.
It was very helpful in this case because I had an intuition for what the solution should be, but I didn't know the proper to implement it.
