ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) saw the "light of day" at the end of November 2022, and in just a few weeks has already kicked up quite a bit of dust. It is a sophisticated chatbot that answers queries in several languages in complete sentences. So far, so been there.
What's special about ChatGPT: The artificial intelligence behind it really lives up to its name, because ChatGPT is really good. ChatGPT's answers are practically indistinguishable from human answers. Thematically, the AI is not (yet) restricted in answering the questions.
How does ChatGPT work?
The main function of the tool is to mimic human conversation. ChatGPT works on the basis of machine learning and neural networks. This means that due to its extensive training data, it is able to respond to questions and communicate in a human-like manner.
And what does that mean in detail now? First, questions or instructions are sent to the model, which it processes and analyses. It uses its training data and neural network architecture to extract the relevant information and generate an answer. The answer is then sent back to the user, creating a dialogue.
And where does ChatGPT get its knowledge from? The developers use data from various sources such as online forums, social media, news articles and books. The AI's answers should therefore definitely be taken with a grain of salt.
Who invented it?
The prototype of the tool was developed by the US tech company OpenAI. CEO, entrepreneur, investor and programmer Samuel H. Altman is an ardent advocate of AI. In a Online dossier he writes: "The technological progress we make in the next 100 years will be far greater than anything we have made since we controlled fire and invented the wheel."
On his Twitter channel, Altman also predicts an AI revolution in the 2020s that will bring about major changes in society and the world of work through the emergence of Artificial General Intelligence.
The tool ChatGPT is obviously making a start, if the opinion of numerous representatives of the industry is anything to go by. AI-generated content fundamentally revolutionise marketing. But is that really the case? We dare to analyse it.
Is ChatGPT revolutionising the content marketing industry?
Yes, because ...
... work must be rethought against this background. But instead of panicking at the thought of mass redundancies or the competition between man and machine, let's think about moments in the workflow that we would already prefer to leave to a computer. The keywords here are automate (faster, more reliable, cheaper), delegate (unpopular, tedious tasks), add work (time-consuming) and augment (bring new aspects to the work).
... ChatGPT can be a creative partner for content creation. The tool can be used not only to prescribe texts or answer simple questions. For example, it also summarises long texts or helps you find topics. You can use this to overcome writer's block and gain inspiration for your own "man-made" content.
... experts are already convinced of this. Among them is Martin Boyer from the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT). According to the magazine AUTlook the researcher says that ChatGPT could certainly "change everyday life", but sees this as "normal technological progress". However, the texts generated by the software must be scrutinised carefully and not simply accepted.
No, because ...
... Google does not (yet) like AI content. This currently even explicitly violates Google's guidelines. The world's largest search engine is considering branding pages with AI content in a highly visible way. Google cannot yet identify this type of content one hundred percent. But fundamentally, we should assume that as AI evolves, so will the identification of AI content. Genuine, human-made content will thus increase in reputation.
... John Mueller, Search Advocate at Google, also takes a stand in a Interview clearly against AI-generated content: "I believe that the quality of the content is perhaps a bit higher thanks to improved tools, but for us it is still automatically generated content. That means it's still against the webmaster guidelines. So we would consider that as spam."
... Content marketing lives from the creativity of the content. If all content strategists and creators now ask the chatbot the same question or enter similar requirements for the AI, then they will all get similar answers. Taking this idea further, all agencies that rely mainly on ChatGPT would produce largely the same content. But if content marketing is to work, you have to create content that surprises and moves people. Only an unusual content creation, one that is unseen in its style, content or format, manages to get attention in the increasingly narrow window of perception of a target group.
Conclusion
Technology is prone to error - it always will be. Even if an AI does the writing, the facts still need to be checked by humans. AI programmes like ChatGPT do not make professional content marketing agencies obsolete, but they can provide essential assistance.
By the way, this blog article was written completely AI-free. There were thoughts of letting our readers guess whether ChatGPT was involved, but at the time of writing the AI server was overloaded and we were unfortunately unable to use the tool. In this case, a human-made article was simply faster.
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