AI writing technology offers opportunities to explore, learn

There’s a new tool called CHATGPT making waves in the writing community. It is a powerful idea with many uses and, naturally, the potential for misuse. Let’s take a look at what this is, what Ai-assisted technology in general might be good for and why people are wary of it.

CHATGPT, which stands for “Generative Pretrained Transformer,” is a computer program released in 2020 by a group called Openai. It can generate text using a variety of techniques to learn how to construct stories. It creates written content resembling something written by a human and the results are improving all the time. The newest version, released in November, is a giant leap forward, which is why it’s getting so much attention.

These types of programs are able to improve their results by using artificial intelligence to train the program. The training methods (also called “machine learning”) include scouring databases of written material, using the program’s input to refine the answers it generates and searching the internet for current information to update the results. And the output can be remarkably good.

Opportunities abound regarding the scope and usage of this new AI technology. We are seeing Aiintegrated programs being used in the creation of music, artwork, photography and text.

CHATGPT focuses on the written word and can react to user input, uncannily emulating a human reaction. The user can even tell the program to respond in the style of a favorite author, a particular genre or specific age group. This sounds familiar — didn’t the TRS-80 do this with Eliza, and Apple do this with Siri?

The difference between the previous interactive computer programs and this approach is that the computer doesn’t simply respond with pre-programmed answers or a simple keyword search of the internet. It is not copying and pasting something from the web; the program creates unique responses, putting words together that weren’t put together before, adapting and responding in ways that feel more intuitive and natural.

People have been having fun with CHATGPT, asking it to create weird and wonderful stories and testing the limitations and possibilities of an Ai-enhanced chatbot, with increasingly astounding results. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that the results are computer-generated and not created by a person impersonating a computer.

But as the technology improves and the output becomes indistinguishable from text created by humans, people are concerned about how these tools are used or misused, much like when calculators became small enough to take to school.

The caution is understandable.

In anticipation of the continued proliferation of Ai-assisted writing programs, Turnitin — a site that educators use to detect plagiarism and ensure academic integrity — is developing a new AI writing and CHATGPT detection capability.

It’s important to acknowledge that similar arguments arose when other technologies were introduced — photography would render painting obsolete; photo-editing programs would make it impossible to identify “real” pictures — and now Ai-assisted text generation will make it impossible to tell if a human wrote it.

But photography didn’t wipe out painting — it opened the door for artists to explore new ways to use paint and new ways to look at our surroundings. Photo-editing tools made it easier to manipulate images and forced us to scrutinize pictures a bit closer, but they also opened up the way we use photographs in our art and in our daily lives. And now we’ll see where this Ai-assisted text leads us.

We need to be careful and we need to scrutinize the written word a little more closely with the introduction of these new tools. Ai-assisted writing programs are in the same bucket as the thesaurus — a tool that can be useful but noticeable if overused.

This wonderful technological adventure has a lot to offer and we need to explore all of the ingenious developments we’ve created to find out how we can use them best. We can figure out how to regulate and monetize them along the way. In the meantime, we all benefit from improved technology and the possibilities they present.

Imagine better closed captioning, intuitive search engine results, creative writing prompts, understandable technical manuals and helpful automated customer service calls. The possibilities are endless.

As companies including Google, Microsoft, and Baidu, continue developing their AI projects, I think we owe it to ourselves to see what we can do with it, to see its potential.

There will be mistakes and ethical questions (we’re seeing some of these already) but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from those mistakes or answer those ethical questions. I think we need to take a deep breath, give it some time, give ourselves some perspective, and see where this leads. It will be fascinating to see how we use this new technology. I think it will make us more creative.

Happy writing! AI writing tools:

• CHATGPT: openai.com/blog/chatgpt/.

• Turnitin AI detection: turnitin.com/blog/sneakpreview-of-turnitins-aiwriting-and-chatgpt-detection-capability.

Mark Givens is the owner of Pelekinesis, a local publishing company, and Bamboo Dart Press, a collaboration with Shrimper Records. He is a member of the Independent Book Publishers Association, Community of Literary Magazines and Presses, the Academy of American Poets, Association of Writers & Writing Programs, The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and the Inlandia Institute.