Artificial Intelligence

This is How Artificial Intelligence is Going to Make Medium Dramatically Better

There is a silver lining in the ChatGPT cloud

I think it is safe to say that anyone that is a content creator or just a creative that writes has at least peripherally heard of Artificial Intelligence driven language models such as ChatGPT. There has been much reporting on, speculation about, and general interest in how AI will impact the information we receive from the internet and elsewhere.

Many writers on Medium have been paying close attention to how ChatGPT can generate blog posts that sound passably close to what we always assumed was created by humans.

Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t great writing, it is passable.

Most of us probably feel like we can sniff out an AI generated story. There are definite tells, and I have seen some comprehensive lists of the ways you can detect an AI spawned text. Some individuals and publications on Medium have taken a hardline stance on how they are intolerant of anything AI manufactured on Medium.

I get it. I don’t think any of us are too worried that AI is going to replace excellent writing and opinion, at least not anytime soon. The concern really comes down to money. Sorry, harsh truth time.

I don’t necessarily mean, either, that a majority of writers on Medium are here only to make a buck. I’m not. I know most of the people who I read, and follow aren’t, but there are certainly some that are. (More on that later).

The real issue

I think the real concern that many of us have is that AI generated text is so easily and quickly produced that the sheer volume will dilute the content that is creative, desirable, and productive. I know from my own experience that people tend to appreciate my writing much more when I come across as human.

I relate to other writers in the same way. I want to find the gems, the pieces of humanity, the stories that are simply too crazy to be true; but are. Stories that have actual value. Value that should be rewarded with readers’ dollars. Not stale trash.

If a fleet of robots starts doling out hackneyed blog posts, non-stop listicles, and the same thing they said last week in slightly different words then the value of Medium as a platform of expression will rapidly diminish and probably be extinguished in entirety.

There is real apprehension that the encroachment of AI will steal the dollars that so rightfully belong in the fists of the creative, the determined, the accomplished, the real human writers that bring the significance to Medium.

The Medium response

Thankfully Medium has taken a stance on the use of AI to generated content for stories. Here is the story that tells us about it from Scott Lamb the Vice President of Content at Medium.

I appreciate the studied approach Medium took to developing policy concerning use of AI. I also welcome their adaptable stance and willingness to make pertinent changes as the technology advances and the writing community begins to acclimatize to this new world of automated language creation models.

In a very brief summary, the policy is this: Don’t use AI to generate content unless you openly disclose that you are doing so.

Easy. Concise. Fair.

I suspect many of us have already had that inner moral monologue about how we might (or completely refuse to) use AI in our writing. I had internally come to Medium’s exact policy personally, so it will be easy to follow for me.

There are many ethical applications of AI use that writers could employ to assist them in writing. Medium thoughtfully even has a tag for AI Ethics and a commensurate list of articles that come with the tag. It is easy enough to research how we might benefit from AI whilst staying well within Medium guidelines.

But some won’t. They will find ways to skirt or bend the guidelines and the only real motivation I can see for doing so is to make a fast buck. Why else would you bother?

How we all will benefit

I have a one more harsh truth for you. Some of the human written stories on Medium are absolute trash as well. Yup, I said it out loud.

For several months I was an editor on a rapidly growing publication here. The publication had a lot of buzz, and many wanted to write under the name to realize the potential benefits of the speedy growth and many followers.

Some of it was just bad writing. But a subsection was just clearly people throwing together content garnered from elsewhere to generate an article. The most frequent form was a listicle. Brainless work, taking content from a web search, synthesizing it (often not well), reordering to avoid plagiarism, and regurgitating it out on “paper” to submit. Completely useless. Garbage content.

So now comes along ChatGPT. Do you know what ChatGPT is astoundingly excellent at? Listicles! From my perspective ChatGPT may be a lot better at generating listicles and toneless blog posts than most humans.

So, let’s make a jump of logic here. If ChatGPT can generate characterless blog posts and listicles better than humans, shouldn’t we just let it do that? And if that is the case, and Medium’s guidelines discourage use of AI, shouldn’t all the “Five ways to make a fast buck” articles just go away?

Yes. The answer is yes. Let’s make that happen Medium community!

That’s not all. There are a host of highly followed (and presumably highly paid) writers on the platform that have completely run out of things to say. They generate the same information over and over (and over) again to the point where we are inundated with the same garbage info. (Thanks Medium for the ability to mute writers).

Let ChatGPT take over that function as well. Maybe Open AI can make their own platform to host all the listicles and re-hashing of the same redundant information and leave Medium for the writers that actually have something creative, or new, or edifying to say.

Conclusion

That is how it is going to happen; I hope. But it won’t just occur organically. We, the writers, and readers (the human ones) need to actively make this happen. Don’t reward content that any AI bot can generate. Mute it. Send it packing to some other platform.

There is a future we can optimistically attain, and it might come with the timely assistance of ChatGPT and other language generation AI.

Let’s see that it does.

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Timothy Key spent over 26 years in the fire service as a firefighter/paramedic and various fire chief management roles. He firmly believes that bad managers destroy more than companies, and good managers create a passion that is contagious. Compassion, grace and gratitude drive the world; or at least they should. Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.