> This client is my main source of income, he’s a marketer who outsources the majority of his copy and content writing to me. Yep, ChatGPT can produce bullshit faster+cheaper than humans produce bullshit.
Bullshit Matters™
It happened to me today: $80/hr writer replaced with ChatGPT
231–240 of 331 posts
Re: It happened to me today: $80/hr writer replaced with ChatGPT
#232It's occurred to me lately that, even though they rarely produce anything better than "adequate", LLMs being leveraged as a cheaper alternative to human output means we'll be settling for more, worse-quality content. Economics aside, I loathe to think of the day that ChatGPT is used to describe food allergens, hazard warnings, voltage ratings, or any other quantitative analysis with potentially lethal implications fo…
> an LLM gets it right most of the time And so do humans. Don't forget that there's plenty of SEO copy writing out there about all kinds of dangerous things that is wrong because the writer didn't understand the topic, couldn't be bothered to copy correctly, changed the meaning while "rewriting" a text etc. The same goes for quality, imho. Everybody thinks they're a terrific writer, but most writing on websites sucks…
>most writing on websites sucks, most documentation sucks, most FAQs are lacking severely and use vague language in answers that add confusion rather than remove it. I'm not sure if LLMs will really lower the average quality there.
That's mostly the case because software developers create a lot of these FAQs and documentations, and most aren't good at writing.
Companies with dedicated documentation teams usually have well-written documentation. It's just not the norm.
Re: It happened to me today: $80/hr writer replaced with ChatGPT
#233It's occurred to me lately that, even though they rarely produce anything better than "adequate", LLMs being leveraged as a cheaper alternative to human output means we'll be settling for more, worse-quality content. Economics aside, I loathe to think of the day that ChatGPT is used to describe food allergens, hazard warnings, voltage ratings, or any other quantitative analysis with potentially lethal implications fo…
Don't forget. Technology improves. Everything we see now is simply the inception.
Additionally chatGPT is in fact already superior to people in many instances of writing. For example, composing a rhyming poem about some obscure topic; chatgpt likely will blow most of us out of the water in terms of quality.
Re: It happened to me today: $80/hr writer replaced with ChatGPT
#234It's occurred to me lately that, even though they rarely produce anything better than "adequate", LLMs being leveraged as a cheaper alternative to human output means we'll be settling for more, worse-quality content. Economics aside, I loathe to think of the day that ChatGPT is used to describe food allergens, hazard warnings, voltage ratings, or any other quantitative analysis with potentially lethal implications fo…
Ya I see this as an extension of what's happened to the Internet, but in everything.
Searching for a product now is just a bunch of SEO crap rankings with affiliate links. Didn't take anything intelligent to create those, just rename 2022 to "2023 (Updated)" and viola. The cognitive overhead of having to parse out solid reviews, find trusted sources, etc., is pretty high now.
And now we're going to have video, audio, music, and entire conversations we think might be authentic but aren't sure, that are just regurgitating patterns with some guesses mixed in. Feels like the next phase will be trying to constantly parse our real from fake.
Re: It happened to me today: $80/hr writer replaced with ChatGPT
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a good thing. One more bullshit job eliminated that only exists to make the numbers go up. This will be hard, but as a society, we need to examine the entire reasoning behind "jobs" and why "more jobs = more gooder". The entire foundation of that line of thought is fundamentally flawed.
If a job makes the "numbers" (by that I assume you mean revenue or profit) go up, then by definition, it's not a bullshit job, it's a productivity enhancer.
'Bullshit jobs' is an indictment of the socioeconomic system that enables such jobs to exist in the first place. It is not an indictment of the individual doing the job; the psychological association between oneself and their bullshit job is at the heart of the analysis. I like this definition:
>"a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case."
Re: It happened to me today: $80/hr writer replaced with ChatGPT
#236Obvious fake story.
Since it's obvious, could you explain why you think that?
Not GP, but the bit about the author signing up for Doordash as a driver also made me think the post is fake.
According to the post, the author lost her client on the day of making the post, and within that same day decided to sign up for Doordash before making the Reddit post. Even if she was under severe financial duress, it would be a surprisingly quick decision, but as a writer previously making $80/hr and having the financial resources to take 3 years off work, it just doesn't seem believable.
In the intro, she states that she's using a throwaway to avoid other clients identifying her, so she clearly does have other clients, and she does mention a "normal" rate of $50/hr, in addition to having worked as a "writer for over a decade, [having] worked with top brands as a freelancer, [and having] more than a dozen published articles on well known websites". How is the best use of time for somebody like that to work an unskilled $20/hr gig instead of investing time into building new client relationships?
Even if the author believes that this client firing her implies that her current profession is doomed long-term, it just seems out of character for somebody like that to resort to being a Doordash driver. It just seems like an appeal to the fear of sliding down the social ladder, and as such a manipulative tool (just like the clickbait title) to produce a high-engagement Reddit post.
Re: It happened to me today: $80/hr writer replaced with ChatGPT
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
As horrified as I am for people whose jobs will be lost (including mine, quite possibly), "content" is such a plague on humanity I'm glad it will soon be devalued into the ground. Moutains of useless tweets and blog posts will be rendered meaningless when ChatGPT has all the answers. Dust to dust.
I both strongly agree (“content is a plague”) and strongly disagree (artisans, even digital ones, make society better). I’m glad that we’ll hopefully see the end of content as an industry, where people churn out text and images and posts trying to monetize attention by the penny. It’s inevitable as content becomes effectively free. How long before TikTok makes AI generated videos without creators? I’m pretty sure med…
This "content" industry is a very recent phenomenon.
It used to be that if you wanted your voice to be heard, you had to either have something unique to say, or some unique way to say it.
We'll likely revert to the status quo - only people whose content will be consumed online will be original voices.
Re: It happened to me today: $80/hr writer replaced with ChatGPT
#238I mean yeah if you're making $80/hr writing marketing noise then your job was always insecure
This is the kind of attitude that makes many hate tech workers.
Let me try to steelman instead: my hypothesis is that copywriting for marketing emails A) has little value and B) can be done by humans much more cheaply than $80/hr. In regards to B), I know there are people doing that job that make a fraction of that wage. Is the author that much faster or does the author write "better" text? I'm skeptical of "better" because of A). But maybe someone has A/B tested marketing emails and can tell us that the text makes a difference?
Re: It happened to me today: $80/hr writer replaced with ChatGPT
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
I both strongly agree (“content is a plague”) and strongly disagree (artisans, even digital ones, make society better). I’m glad that we’ll hopefully see the end of content as an industry, where people churn out text and images and posts trying to monetize attention by the penny. It’s inevitable as content becomes effectively free. How long before TikTok makes AI generated videos without creators? I’m pretty sure med…
> My classic example is musicians. It’s something people love to be, but in a world with recorded audio, you don’t need as many musicians as you once needed (and it was actually a fairly common job). I am not sure I agree with this. The barrier to entry to selling your own music (streaming, youtube) is so low that we see more and more people giving it a shot. Maybe they are not professionnel with a title, but they ar…
I think that's because for most, it's moved from being a profession to a hobby. Many hobbyists dream of turning their hobby into a profession, and work towards that, yet for most it remains a hobby.
> but they are musicians
I think the GP meant professional musicians.
Re: It happened to me today: $80/hr writer replaced with ChatGPT
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
I both strongly agree (“content is a plague”) and strongly disagree (artisans, even digital ones, make society better). I’m glad that we’ll hopefully see the end of content as an industry, where people churn out text and images and posts trying to monetize attention by the penny. It’s inevitable as content becomes effectively free. How long before TikTok makes AI generated videos without creators? I’m pretty sure med…
> It’s something people love to be, but in a world with recorded audio, you don’t need as many musicians as you once needed (and it was actually a fairly common job). I do wonder if people are going to start valuing in-person experiences more and more, as anything on the internet can now be faked (or AI-generation, which, artistically speaking, is close to the same thing). If we do, might we see a boom of live perfor…
> I do wonder if people are going to start valuing in-person experiences more and more, as anything on the internet can now be faked
Probably not.
If I like some content, why would I care it it is "fake"?