Last week, while fine-tuning my manuscript for publication, doubts clouded my mind. There has been a flood of articles and buzz about artificial intelligence (AI) ChatGPT, including its use for writing and content development. Is there a need for a “Clear and Concise Writing” book? Did I waste my time drafting this? Shall I spend more time getting it published?
The use of AI has advantages and flaws. It can save time and money, reduce errors and increase accuracy, hide one’s lack of competence, and enthuse laziness.
AI “ChatGPT does not have the ability to search the internet for information and rather, uses the information it learned from training data to generate a response, which leaves room for error”. – Ortiz, 2022 (https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-chatgpt-and-why-does-it-matter-heres-what-you-need-to-know/).
“As a language model, ChatGPT is not a traditional source that would typically be included in a bibliography. Instead, you can acknowledge the use of the model in the text and a note or a disclaimer. For example, you can add a statement like “This document was generated with the help of ChatGPT, a large language model developed by OpenAI. It’s important to note that ChatGPT is a tool, it does not conduct original research, it only provides the information it was trained on, and it’s not an author”. – ChatGPT by OpenAI accessed on 20/01/2023.
Out of curiosity, I logged in on 22/01/23. This is what it gave me: “Write an acrostic poem about the status of ChatGPT.
C: ChatGPT is currently down
H: Huge demand has caused the site to crash
A: All users will have to wait
T: Time is needed for the servers to catch up
G: Go grab a coffee and check back soon
P: Patience is key in this situation
T: Trust that the team is working hard to fix it up”.
English physicist Stephen William Hawking (1942-2018), famous for his theories on relativity and quantum mechanics, had said: “The primitive forms of artificial intelligence we already have, have proved very useful. But I think the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” (Cellan-Jones, https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540. Seen on 23/01/23).
Two days ago, I received an email from one of my students that included these encouraging words: “I’ve been thinking about the question you raised earlier about whether you should publish the book or not. I hope you will, and human beings will always do. You (human authors in general) write books, and AI generates them. I don’t care how good an AI-generated book may/will be one day. I like knowing that there’s someone feeling something while writing the book that makes me feel something when reading it”.
I have subtitled my book “Self-confidence and not software -dependence”.