Has ChatGPT made writers redundant?

So ask people stunned by ChatGPT’s ability to provide well-written, coherent answers. 

Since people with even modest writing skills can use ChatGPT to come up with fairly well-structured, error-free communications, they infer that writing will no longer be a prized skill. 

Let us step back and look at this another way.

• When typewriters were in vogue, the ability to spell complex words was a big asset.
• Expertise in grammar was once a huge advantage.

But as spell-check became the norm in writing software (like MS Word, Google Docs), knowledge of spelling is perhaps only useful at spelling bee contests. With tools like Grammarly, writing grammatically-correct content is no longer a big deal.

But the ease has come with a cost.

Spelling errors are less acceptable than they once were as they now indicate carelessness rather than ignorance. Likewise, excepting complex cases, people don’t see common grammar mistakes as leniently as they once did. 

Why?

The baseline expectations of what constitutes decent writing has increased with the introduction of each new technology. 

So why does ChatGPT look different?

Previously, it was not uncommon for people to search for different perspectives (on different webpages, naturally) on a given topic and stitch them together. 

Say, you needed to write an appreciation letter to your colleague. You check out different samples available online, and write a fresh copy based on the ideas you liked. 

That didn’t appear nearly as magical because the process still did need human intervention at the last mile. The reason why ChatGPT astonishes people is that the technology is now capable of traversing this last mile too. 

Instead of verbatim quoting of the material from the web, ChatGPT rephrases the content in its own way. Seen from this vantage point, ChatGPT is merely doing what the content mills always were. But it’s this rephrasing of the content (instead of quoting word to word) that gives ChatGPT the veneer of human intelligence. 

Will the writing profession cease to exist?

No.

But the baseline expectations have increased. 

Just like strong spelling and grammar skills alone cannot fetch a job today, the ability to write average content will no longer suffice for a job.

If a job requires writing quality that ChatGPT can match, then such jobs are bound to go obsolete.

Now, writers will need to bring much more to the table: things like perspective, experience, , empathy, creativity, and, importantly, humanity among others. 

Writers with ‘taste and discernment’ (that Jerry Seinfeld identifies as the ultimate skill of the artist) will continue to have their own place under the sun.