Recently, LinkedIn has looked a little like a Godzilla movie. The majority of people ran away in terror, the odd weirdo celebrated the ensuing destruction, and then a handful of brave, intrepid adventurers looked the apocalypse in the face and said, “Not today, bucko.” (Okay I haven’t actually seen Godzilla…)

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The cause of this chaos? An unassuming little chatbot that goes by the name of ChatGPT. Of course, so much has been said and written about this AI tool already that there’s no point in me explaining what it is. If you don’t know, then where the hell have you been?

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Most of the panic has come from writers. That seems to have been the most popular use of ChatGPT. Apart from those creeps who use it as a sexbot. Or so I’ve heard. Ahem.

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Their panic is largely along the lines of “ChatGPT is going to take my job!” or “That darned AI is going to destroy the writing industry!” or “Grab the pitchforks, my fellow yokels!”

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Their panic is also largely unfounded. Well, unless they’re really shit at writing. But we’ll get to that. First…

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Let’s talk about bread

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If you’re wanting smooth segues between paragraphs, look elsewhere. It’s time to talk about bread. A brief history of bread, if you will.

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You see, there was once a time where bread was considered a craft. Bakers would hone their skills in boiling hot bakeries. And this was a time where a fire could cause serious harm. Just ask Mr Pepys.

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But the bread was good. It was valued. People couldn’t get enough of the stuff.

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Then one day, the evil Mr Warburton came along and realised he could get factory machines to do the baking. Much cheaper, much faster. And his bread rapidly took over. It was the best thing since non-sliced bread.

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But this was terrible for bakers. They couldn’t compete with their cheaper, faster robotic counterparts. It was the end for them.

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Except, until it wasn’t. Recently we’ve seen a resurgence in hand-baked, carefully crafted, artisan loaves. We were even attempting it ourselves during lockdown. And now bakers can happily charge ten quid for a loaf of sourdough. 

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So it turns out those machines were eventually pretty good for the bread industry. And hopefully now you see why this segue was important…

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Because ChatGPT will save the content industry

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“C’mon man,” I hear you cry, “surely you can’t be serious!” Well I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley. 

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Everyone knows that over the past ten years the content industry has slowly died a painful death. The market is saturated with wannabe writers peddling crappy content to miserly clients who don’t know any better.

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And if that sounds harsh, then you’re probably the problem.

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Because the good writers are reading this and nodding their heads in sad agreement. Writing, especially content writing, is now massively undervalued. And it’s making life really fucking tough for the actually good writers out there.

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So when this incredible AI chatbot appears out of nowhere and people start using it to write content, no wonder these good writers are getting themselves all worked up.

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However, I come forth with good news, my friends. ChatGPT is going to replace some writers, yes. But only the shit ones…

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And so begins the great content culling

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Whether or not ChatGPT is a good writer is neither here nor there. I’m not here to debate that either way. The important point here is that as far as clients are concerned, ChatGPT can do just as good a job as the shit content writers.

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And all that really means is that the shit content writers will find it pretty hard to convince clients that they should opt for them.

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For the good writers, it means you’ll be in even greater demand. You’ll be valued more highly because you’re delivering actually good content, not the meaningless, regurgitated claptrap that ChatGPT (and shit content writers) produce. Oh, and clients get much better content as a result. 

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Everyone wins. Except the shit writers. Soz.

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So what should you do?

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Well, if you’re a good writer you can chill the fuck out. You’ll be fine. If anything you’ll end up with more clients, doing more valuable work, and making more dough. If you’re a shit writer you should either get better or get gone. If you’re a client, hire an actual human to do your work you tight git. And if you’re ChatGPT, I want you to know that I, for one, welcome our robot overlords.