To Katrina McKinnon, synthetic intelligence-powered writing instruments are solely nearly as good because the operators that immediate them. And the perfect “immediate engineers” shall be liberal arts people, storytellers — not mathematicians.
McKinnon based CopySmiths, a blog-writing company, three years in the past. She and I first spoke shortly after that launch, lengthy earlier than the rise of AI instruments. We just lately caught up, this time addressing writers for rent in a ChatGPT world.
The audio of our complete dialog is embedded under. The transcript is edited for size and readability.
Eric Bandholz: What do you do?
Katrina McKinnon: I’m the founding father of CopySmiths. We’re an Australia-based weblog writing company for ecommerce shops. The corporate is three years previous.
We work with writers worldwide, primarily in Kenya. They’re very keen and hungry to work. Sadly, Kenya has very excessive unemployment.
Bandholz: Are synthetic intelligence instruments impacting your online business?
McKinnon: Simply months in the past, I used to be cautious of AI. We had by no means used AI instruments like Jasper or Frase. We as soon as used Surfer web optimization, but it surely left a fingerprint and created an expectation that content material is straightforward.
Now we handcraft all content material, however we use AI for concepts. We will direct it, for instance, “Give me an overview on easy methods to clear a fountain pen.” It’ll do this fairly properly, though there are minor particulars it doesn’t perceive.
One other good use is advanced product descriptions. We’ve a consumer that sells headlamps and head torches for mining actions. When you’re going right into a quarry, an explosive atmosphere, you don’t need your head torch sparking a fireplace. ChatGPT is sensible at teasing out all the main points. You may paste the product information into ChatGPT, and inside seconds it can spit again, “This one’s received three batteries. The sunshine lasts 24 hours.”
I don’t see ChatGPT turning into a search engine. It’s extra of a discovery and analysis software. We don’t use it to supply weblog copy as a result of it doesn’t go into the depth wanted to point out authority on a subject. We use it for summarizing and studying.
It’s good for creating tables. You may direct it, “Make a desk evaluating these nutritional vitamins and the impact on my pores and skin, hair, or general well-being and inform me the milligram dosage.” It might probably create fairly advanced tables with very totally different relationships within the knowledge.
Nevertheless, the information are mistaken 80% of the time. So it requires in depth human oversight.
Bandholz: Can Google distinguish between AI and human-written articles?
McKinnon: Sure. A Google worker just lately tweeted that AI content material is appropriate in the appropriate eventualities. So that you wouldn’t publish an opinion piece from ChatGPT, however you would actually use a simple FAQ, corresponding to easy methods to exchange the batteries.
ChatGPT is one among many AI writing instruments. Perplexity.ai, for instance, is a mixture between Google search and Bing chat, functioning as a search engine that precisely cites sources.
Google search is damaged. Its outcomes are crammed filled with low-quality Forbes articles. I spoke yesterday with a service provider who paid a Forbes creator to incorporate the corporate’s sneakers in an article. So it’s pay-to-play. That’s not a follow I’m all for.
Hopefully Google will evolve from a boring, dumb search engine.
I’m excited concerning the coming want for AI operators, which I name immediate engineers. Many entrepreneurs are quantitative and mathematical. They run pay-per-click, “data-driven” campaigns. That’s how they develop ecommerce income.
With immediate engineering, it is going to be the storytellers — liberal arts majors and communicators — who management the language fashions as a result of they naturally suppose creatively with phrases. Over the following few years, we’ll see linguistically artistic founders construct huge companies.
Bandholz: The place can our viewers observe you?
McKinnon: Go to CopySmiths.com. I’ve received a Fb group known as Outstanding Freelance Writers in Africa. You will discover me on LinkedIn.
