ChatGPT and other generative AI tools have been held up as bogeymen since they hit the scene last year. “They’ll take your job eventually” is the mantra, but we just keep dishing out the doom and gloom. Yours The Washington Post is reporting that generative AI is no bogeyman and has actually started putting people out of jobs.
Generative AI is far from perfect, and the longer you let it run, the more obvious its mistakes will become. For social media writers, however, it seems companies think AI is “good enough” for the job.
The Post highlighted the story of Olivia Lipkin, a 25-year-old copywriter from San Francisco who worked at a tech startup. She said she didn’t think much of ChatGPT when it started last November, but in the following months, she noticed her managers referring to her as Olivia/ChatGPT on Slack (how rude!). started and was fired in April. .
Lipkin was reportedly never given a reason for losing his job, but learned that company managers were writing about how using ChatGPT was cheaper than hiring a writer. . The reason why he was expelled became clear to him.
“Every time people bring up ChatGPT, I feel insecure and worried that it will replace me,” she said. “Now I actually had proof that it was true, that these problems were confirmed and now I was actually out of a job because of AI.”
Microsoft has been a big supporter in the creative AI scene, funding OpenAI to continue its work and launching Bing Chat which leverages ChatGPT. Microsoft has tried to balance the fact that AI can do some of the work that humans do with the idea that these tools should be used to support human workers, not replace them.
A very important point to consider in Lipkin’s story is the economic times in which we live. With interest rates rising rapidly around the world, consumers are spending less and businesses are downsizing to cut costs and focus on profitable projects.
It’s likely, especially considering he worked at a startup, that Lipkin’s layoff had more to do with a tighter budget than ChatGPT coming in to take all the jobs. The real impact of generative AI will be seen once inflation comes down, rates drop and normalcy returns – if humans are permanently replaced, this could create huge problems for those affected.
Source: The Washington Post
