Thanks for Trying, ChatGPT
Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash
Ah, AI. You either love it or hate it. Have whole-heartedly embraced it or are afraid of it. Want to talk about nothing else or are sick to death of hearing about it everywhere. I’m somewhere in between.
I love new technology — when it works. I define “works” as: makes life easier or better in some way. As a young journalist working for a doctor’s magazine, I talked my employer into giving me the title, “New Media Editor.” I curated roundups of websites dedicated to medical practice management and wrote articles about doctors who were using digital technology effectively. In 1999, there weren’t many. It would take another two decades and a global pandemic for telemedicine to be widely adopted.
Today, I am (still) a journalist, as well as a content marketing writer and editor. Currently, I am also a job seeker. The impact of AI on job searching cannot be overstated. Here are excerpts from two job descriptions I’ve seen recently:
As part of the interviewing process, you may be asked to complete a paid test article. Using AI-generated content is strictly prohibited.
In this role, you will train and manage AI copywriting tools to generate content that adheres to established brand voice and tone.
Employers are obviously conflicted, too. They want to get in on the AI wave, but they’re not sure how, and how much.
Career coaches are encouraging job seekers to use AI to research companies and draft cover letters. Employers are using AI to screen resumes and interview candidates. My last interview was conducted by an AI chatbot. Impersonal? Maybe. But it was actually quite intuitive, efficient, and less awkward than many Zoom interviews I’ve done with humans. (“You’re on mute.” Yes, we’re still doing that in 2025.)
People have asked me if I’m afraid that AI will steal my job. If you consider a writer’s job only to draft words on a page in a way that makes sense, then yes. AI can absolutely do that job. AI is also pretty good at writing multiple versions of social media copy for different platforms. It does go overboard on the emojis, in my opinion.
My actual job, however, involves much more than just writing. It includes researching, interviewing sources (i.e., humans), thinking critically, and evaluating the quality and accuracy of information. AI is not good at those things. It’s well known that ChatGPT and other generative AI tools regularly make up, say, research studies that don’t actually exist. To put it plainly: AI invents and dispenses false information. This is particularly concerning when you’re talking about health and medical information. I could make a comment here about our Commander in Chief, but I won’t.
I also don’t think AI is great at brainstorming. Some people are very excited about the possibilities of this. “Take a picture of the contents of your fridge and ask ChatGPT to come up with a recipe for dinner!” But AI doesn’t know that my son is sick of chicken, I don’t eat meat, and we like spicy ethnic flavors, like Thai food.
Yes, you can refine your query. I have done enough AI trainings to know that to write effect prompts, you need to give gen AI tools a persona and context as well as a task. You may also need to “iterate” — that is, keep tweaking your original prompt — in order to get useful results.
Is this really easier or better than simply pondering for a few minutes with your human brain what to make for dinner? Or asking your kid what they want? The last time I asked mine, he found a TikTok recipe he wanted to try in 0.02 seconds. Problem solved.
So what is AI good for? That depends on many factors. Even the experts will admit that. It depends on what you want to do, what AI tool you’re using, and how effectively you create your prompts, among other things. I have found AI to be extremely useful in simplifying and summarizing complex medical information. I absolutely love my AI transcription tool that transcribes my audio interviews into written text and summarizes key points. (Note: It’s not perfect. It mixes up and misspells words regularly, especially names.)
On a podcast I listened to recently, an early adopter of AI said, basically, if anyone tells you they’re an expert in AI, they’re lying. The technology is simply too new and is changing too rapidly. So my approach to AI is this: I am choosing to educate myself, experiment with it, and keep iterating. There’s that word again. In the meantime, anyone got any ideas for what to make for dinner?
Abigail Green is an experienced content marketing writer and journalist who offers creative solutions for every content need. Reach out if you’re hiring or know someone who is!