From the Trenches of ChatGPT

It was back in January when I had my first encounter with ChatGPT. I had heard its name whispered, had seen a few headlines, since it first launched a month or so earlier. And while I roughly knew the premise behind the service from OpenAI, I had not yet ventured into the AI chatbot’s lair.

By the new year, though, industries were quietly starting to hum with chatter about ChatGPT. It was swiftly gaining momentum, with a domino effect trickling across various business sectors as more and more people began to experiment with the AI tool to test its abilities, possible applications and bounds.

And so, by the time January rolled around and marketers, brands and retailers swarmed New York’s Javits Center for NRF’s Big Show, it made perfect sense that the conference’s ultimate small talk/ice breaker was: “Have you heard of ChatGPT?”

I vividly recall being asked that question by an industry colleague as they pulled out their phone to conduct a demo of this freaky new tool. “What shall we ask it?” I paused, not sure how to respond — the possibilities were endless. Finally, though, we settled on something straightforward: “Write me an article about retail media.” I looked on in curiosity as the screen lit up with words and words and words. Mere seconds later, paragraphs populated the whole page. With a discerning editor’s eye, I began to analyze the copy — to my bewilderment, it wasn’t half bad. This thing was both amazing and terrifying.

Fast-forward several months and ChatGPT is part of everyday vernacular now. Generative AI and its impact on businesses is just beginning to be understood, but it marks a decidedly clear fork in the road for the next era of technology and the evolution of many industries as we currently know them.

My own personal employment of ChatGPT has been sparse. I considered asking it to write this month’s column as a little exercise of my own, and sharing the results with you all here, but ultimately decided against that idea (as a writer I just can’t relinquish any words on this page to a chatbot out of principle and perhaps a little pride).

To date, the most useful way I’ve used ChatGPT is to get ideas for trip itineraries. It’s fascinating to see what suggestions it gives you and how those recommendations change based on the details of your prompt (“Keep in mind I like luxury hotels with big bathtubs, fashion, good food and wine.”). But my favorite way I’ve tested ChatGPT is by tasking it with writing short stories with ridiculous prompts — spanning everything from superhero origin stories to “SNL” monologues to mystery feuds between fictional coworkers — to see just how creative this little AI beast could get. (Editor’s note: It’s at this point that I should apologize to my coworkers for making them listen to and read countless ChatGPT creative concoctions. You know who you are, and I’m sorry for wasting so much of your time with this little project of mine!)

So, after many experiments — conducted in the name of research, of course — I’m happy to report that while the stories ChatGPT crafted were quite entertaining (laser beam eyes!), my verdict is that they’ll never take the place of the beautifully written words my human editors use to tell stories on a daily basis. It appears the robots are NOT going to take our jobs after all — well, at least not yet.