AI – TechCommGeekMom

The big topic right now in the content world is the emergence of Chat GPT and other AI tools. Chat GPT has the head start as it’s an open source project. Today, after much resistance of checking into it, I happened to have watched a demonstration of the tool, and it was compelling. So, I’ve gotten my copy of Chat GPT, and entered the chat, “Explain why technical writers are superior to Chat GPT.”

This was the response:

As an AI language model, I can provide quick, accurate, and informative answers to a wide range of questions, but there are certain areas where technical writers have advantages over AI models like me.

Contextual Understanding: Technical writers have a deep understanding of their industry and domain, which enables them to provide context to complex technical information and explain it in a way that is easy to understand.
Personal Touch: Technical writers bring their own unique voice and perspective to the content they create, making it more engaging and human.
Collaboration: Technical writers work closely with subject matter experts and other stakeholders to ensure that the content they produce is accurate and up-to-date. They also have the ability to incorporate feedback and make revisions to their work.
Adaptability: Technical writers are able to adapt to changes in technology and industry standards, ensuring that their content remains relevant and current.
Ethical considerations: Technical writers are aware of ethical considerations such as ensuring accuracy and avoiding plagiarism, which are important for maintaining credibility and trust with the audience.

While AI models like me can provide quick and accurate answers, technical writers bring a level of expertise and personal touch that is often important for creating effective technical content.

Hey, Chat GPT. I don’t think I could have said it better myself. 😉

For exactly the reasons that Chat GPT provided, I don’t think technical writers and communicators will be out of a job just yet. Even when I thought about it, it’ll be tricky putting this in several places. While the education field is already getting nervous about the implications for students to write original research papers or essays, I’m thinking about my own job. I work on a form of internal communications, and the specific policies and procedures would only apply to the company, and would not necessarily be public information, so it wouldn’t necessarily know what to write for certain knowledge articles. I’m sure there are other exceptions, but you get the idea.

What do you think of Chat GPT or other AI creation tools? Comment below.

This just came out in the news today, which I saw through the Mashable feed. Google’s AI Assistant is really learning how to interact using natural language in a big way. The future, if it’s not now, is coming very soon!

If this is truly working, and I’m guessing it’ll be available to the public soon enough, it’s going to be kicking the back end of Siri and Alexa and Cortana. I’ve used Siri for a while now, and it’s not perfect, but it’s okay–it’s gotten better over the years. Alexa has been a bit of a disappointment to me–Siri can usually do better. With mixed results from those two, I haven’t really ventured into trying Cortana, but I’m willing to bet that it’s still not as developed as the Google Assistant.

How does this affect technical communicators? Big time. From what I can tell, this is about the chatbots and machine language learning that’s been talked about recently. But at the same time, it affects how we communicate through rhetoric or voice. Sometimes we take actual speaking for granted, and it’s when we try to describe something that one sees clearly that it becomes difficult. Or, sometimes we can write it out well, but can’t explain well in voice. This means that plain and very clear language is going to be helpful going forward as we develop the content for these AI assistants that will be developing.

Soon enough, we’ll be talking to HAL or to our starship’s computer with ease.

Scotty talking to a computer mouse. — When going back in time in Star Trek IV, Chief Engineer Scott forgot that there wasn’t AI in the late 1980s.

What do you think about this development? It’s exciting to me–enough to make me want to purchase a Google Assistant! It definitely raises the bar for Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon, for sure. Let some healthy competition begin! (And more tech comm jobs associated with it!) Include your thoughts below.