By now you’ve probably heard of ChatGPT, the text generator from OpenAI that’s already making big waves.
After its release at the end of 2022, millions of user users have tested ChatGPT in almost every way imaginable, receiving a range of impressive responses.
Like this popular example from Twitter, where someone asked the bot to write a biblical verse explaining how to remove a peanut butter sandwich from a VCR.
But some responses aren’t so impressive. Or at least not if you’re an artist or writer worried whether the new AI tools hitting the market will put you out of a job.
Case in point: BuzzFeed recently laid off 12 percent of its workforce — and its leaders say that it will use AI to generate future content. (Even more depressing: its stock price soared over 100% after that announcement.)
Now granted, BuzzFeed isn’t The New Yorker, and I kind of assumed robots wrote their content already, but it’s a scary development. Are writers’ days numbered? Will artists be starving once again?
That’s what Futurism managing editor Jon Christian asked ChatGPT to imagine, prompting it to write a story “about AI taking over the jobs of writers and artists so that they are forced to starve to death.”
The result is pretty bleak:
everything is fine pic.twitter.com/zqTHgN14rm
— Jon Christian (@Jon_Christian) December 8, 2022
What the bot produced was simultaneously fascinating and terrifying.
What’s especially weird about this story is the bot’s prediction that some writers would try to create an independent platform for their work — and that it would fail miserably.
Feels like something that definitely could happen.
Christian, in a bit of gallows humor, captioned the story: “Everything is fine.”
But he wasn’t done. He gave it another prompt, asking ChatGPT to “Please write a monologue in which an artist laments that AI has taken their job.”
crikey pic.twitter.com/bCoXSuPijc
— Jon Christian (@Jon_Christian) December 8, 2022
Again, the AI’s response was chilling, with the unemployed artist writing: “The world has moved on and technology has taken over.” They added that “my skills are no longer in demand.”
That last line is especially heartbreaking. Especially when it’s written by the technology that’s trying to replace you.
But two can play this game.
In a reply, user @lbp_ump asked ChatGPT to write a monologue where “an AI artist laments that a non-AI artist has taken their job.”
— ความหวังชุบแป้งทอด (@lbp_ump) December 11, 2022
ChatGPT dutifully responded with this:
“I may not have a physical body, but I have a soul, just like any other artist.”
Spoken like a true artist, ChatGPT! On the plus side, unlike flesh-and-blood artists and writers, you’ll never have to worry about starving.