Robot and human working together.
ChatGPT wrote this article. I’m just kidding—the waitlist was too long. But if I were a writer looking to replace my own services with ChatGPT, I wouldn’t be alone.
Two months ago, Buzzfeed announced it was laying off 12% of its staff, then started using ChatGPT to write quizzes. Buzzfeed may have been Twitter’s main villain for a few hours, but it’s neither the first nor last company to begin replacing its workforce with ChatGPT. People have started to ask me if I fear for my job in light of ChatGPT’s meteoric rise, to which I always respond, “No, because I don’t have a job.” That’s not entirely true, though. I’m a freelancer, which means I have 17 jobs. And yes, I’m scared ChatGPT might replace some of them.
On the bright side, I believe many industries will be slow to replace writers with ChatGPT—and there are some that probably never will. In 2019, I worked part-time at a nonprofit that still did not use email. Paradoxically, the rise of AI makes me want to either join the type of industry that will never trust technology (I recently looked into state government jobs, keep me in your prayers), or follow the advice, “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” and be at the cutting edge of technological change (do they need social media people on Mars?). Fortunately, I’m a freelancer with 17 jobs, so I’m able to do both.
The rise of ChatGPT compels me to invest in new skills. For instance, it could be years before publishers are comfortable posting a ChatGPT-written article without a human reading over it, since ChatGPT is trained on data before 2021, and has a tendency to be wrong. I’m trying to buff up my editing skills, and I encourage other freelancers to do the same. Formulaic types of writing, such as lists, are easy for ChatGPT, but the AI doesn’t have so much of a “voice” (it’s no Siri). Therefore, I will continue to develop my own brand; if I build a following of people who want to hear what I have to say, I might be able to compete with typo-free robots.
And—not to be excessively cheery—I believe there are ways in which ChatGPT can aid freelancers. I love to write, but as a freelancer, I spend far too much time filling out forms to get paid (for those curious—the desired amount of time spent on this task is none). I have reason to believe that ChatGPT could take over my accounting in the near
Additionally, while I wouldn’t be comfortable using ChatGPT to write anything I intend to publish (there’s been much debate on the ethics of passing ChatGPT’s work off as one’s own), I would use it for research. Wikipedia has vastly improved the speed at which I acquire information, but ChatGPT could answer my specific questions without sifting through dozens of links. I don’t make nearly enough money to feel guilty about asking ChatGPT why everyone on the internet is making fun of Pete Davidson. And, to be honest, I think ChatGPT is probably grateful just to have a gal pal to gossip with!
Ultimately, I’m optimistic about freelancers’ chances of surviving ChatGPT. If I had to guess, I’d say the most important asset in our so-called “new economy” is adaptation—and freelancers have that in droves. We know how to learn new skills as AI replaces old ones, we know how to handle uncertainty, and, most importantly, we know how to lie and claim to have skills or information we haven’t yet acquired (I’d never heard of ChatGPT before I agreed to write this article).
At the end of the day, ChatGPT reminds us to all have humility. It is possible the machine can do it better than us—think of the dishwasher. Or any other machine. And humility is something I’ve certainly learned as a freelancer, as I once got fired six times in one month. So ChatGPT may change my freelancing career, but I’m ready for it.
