I’m a writer. I wrote my first essays double-spaced, in cursive on college ruled notebook paper. I brought an electric typewriter (a gift from my parents) to college. I take notes on paper. I have a favorite pen.  

Now, I work for a marketing agency and it’s important for us to keep abreast of the latest tools. We’re always trying new technology to help us work faster and more efficiently. Some tech fits; some doesn’t, and some is impractically expensive. We test these products so we can explain their use or uselessness to clients, and because they might make our own lives easier. Automation helps us upload subscribers in our email marketing. We use Yoast SEO in WordPress. Many of us use Grammarly. These are all useful tools. 

I’m not crazy about AI, but it’s here, so we make the most of it.  

I’ve been with CPRM for 9 years. In that time, I’ve written about robots, financial planning, ball bearings, virtual reality, dementia, dentistry, movies, and a bunch of other stuff. I take pride in my ability to learn just enough about a given subject to write about it intelligently. I ask good questions, do my research, open a blank Word document, and compose.  

The writing process 

For me, writing an article is a multi-phase activity. For example, say you have an industry, but no specific topic, I have a process: 

• Brainstorming 

• • What are the client’s priorities? 

• • What’s going on in the industry? 

• • Are there any newsworthy topics that might garner attention? 

• Building an outline or list of major points 

• Researching the subject  

• • What factors does the client want to highlight? Avoid? 

• • Are the client’s competitors writing about this subject? What’s their take on it? 

• • What do industry publications have to say? 

• Writing the article 

• Reading the article aloud (It’s important to listen for awkwardness.) 

At any given time, I both love and hate each of these building blocks, but I mostly love them.  

“Use AI”, they said. “What could go wrong?” 

So, when someone says, “Just use ChatGPT to generate a list of topics or titles.” I make an unhappy face. That’s the best part! 

When someone says, “Research is much quicker if you use AI.” I make another unhappy face because finding trade publications and researching there is always a treat. You discover thought leaders, fantastic resources, and writers and reporters working in the space.  

Then, they say, “Hey, just input a prompt and the AI tool will write it for you!” Well, what’s the fun in that? I mean, I didn’t come to work at a marketing firm because I wanted to type a few words and read what the AI spits out. That would be like that old IBM ad where the woman with a beehive hairdo shoves punch cards into a slot, and we see some lights blink. 

Some might say that it’s my job and it’s not supposed to be fun, but wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy the thing you spend most of your week doing?  

Desk Set foreshadowed all of this 

Thinking about AI made me think of one of the best movies to deal with the advent of computers. It’s the 1957 film Desk Set. In it, Katharine Hepburn is a documentalist at a broadcasting company. She’s intelligent, well educated, and well-read. Her job is to field questions from every department in the building. Sometimes, the queries are fact-checking and other times, they’re meant to fill in gaps in knowledge. Every time Kate receives a question, she either knows the answer outright, or knows where to find it. That’s skill. When the company decides to introduce a computer to the research department, Kate and her coworkers are angry. They feel threatened and wonder if they’re being replaced.

Of course, since Kate is so awesome, they prove their worth. They also find out that the computer was never meant to replace them, just augment their team and make their lives easier. Everyone laughs and the movie ends happily. If you haven’t seen the film, I recommend it highly. Hepburn and Spencer Tracy are fantastic and the script, by Phoebe and Henry Ephron (Nora’s folks) is intelligent, witty, and modern. 

Anyhoo, I’m going to think of AI as a cousin to EMERAC (Electromagnetic Memory and Research Arithmetical Calculator), the computer in the film. I’ll use AI to help with SEO (search engine optimization) in WordPress and ask for the occasional title suggestion for my articles, but I probably won’t ask AI to write for me.   

Here are a few closing thoughts.  

• Words are important. 

• Spelling is important. 

• Effort is important. 

• Figuring things out is important. 

• AI can still help. 

Cue ‘Old man yells at cloud’ gif.  

 – Kerry

 

Photo by Museums of History New South Wales on Unsplash