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  Sara Rosinsky • Shiny Red Copy

sara's Shiny red blog

Am I going the way of the milkman?

9/24/2021

19 Comments

 
Picture
I find the idea of AI-assisted copywriting pretty terrifying. Every time I use Google Docs to write something, a voice in my head says, “They’re recording all of this. Every keystroke. Every hesitation. Every correction. Soon, they (whoever that is) will be able to replicate your voice exactly. You will be rendered obsolete. You will become impoverished. Worthless. Ruined. And you’ll have no one to blame but yourself. You will have handed them the keys to your copy kingdom, all for the sake of convenience.”

I admitted as much to a small networking group last week. But one of the participants assured me that Jarvis.ai, the self-proclaimed “future of writing” was a wonderful tool. Hmmm, I thought. Hmmm.

A few days later, when I shared my AI anxiety with a group of copywriters, my friend Bill assuaged it a bit, reminding me that new tools are frequently scary at first, but then they come to be ordinary.

And so, dear reader, I am dictating this text into Jarvis right now. I had surgery on my hand yesterday, and the aforementioned Jarvis enthusiast has given me a free five–day trial at the highest subscription tier, so I’m using my post-op recovery time to play around with what could well be my replacement. (Jarvis will never require hand surgery. Or hands.)

I’m going to conduct a little experiment. I’ve written everything above this point myself. But now I’m going to give Jarvis the command, “Use the text above to finish this blog.” Let’s see what happens.

Oops. Take two.

OK. That was an unfair test, evidently. Jarvis just repeated what I’d written, word for word.

Now I’ll instead ask it to write three paragraphs answering the question, “Should copywriters feel threatened by Jarvis and other AI?” (Edit—I directed it to go beyond three paragraphs.)

Here’s what Jarvis wrote.

As a copywriter, I'm very curious about how AI can be used to create content. And as a writer, who knows how intimidating the blank page can be, I've been exploring this myself for some months now. But what seems scary to many writers is that AI will take over the profession—or at least large parts of it.

In short: No need to fear! Certainly, copywriters should use every tool at their disposal--whether it's motivational apps or mindmapping techniques or just dousing oneself with coffee and getting started on that white paper--but they shouldn't worry too much about artificial intelligence taking over their livelihoods anytime soon (if ever). 

Copywriting has developed into an artistic discipline like anything else; there are still rules that can be followed, but the best writing is often creative and innovative. And AI isn't intelligent enough to do that yet.

However, all this doesn't mean copywriters shouldn't explore the possibilities of new tools like Jarvis—the future of writing--in their own work. For example, it can help marketers create more targeted content using natural language generation (NLG) to increase their lead generation.

So relax, copywriters. You may be able to stop obsessively checking your email for that message from Google telling you that it's "improved" your writing style and now it won't need you anymore. Relax and enjoy the ride!

Well, well, well. That was a pleasant surprise! Jarvis worked out some complete thoughts, and apparently wasn't intimidated by the idea of writing a blog post on AI's impact on copywriting.

I don't know if it's any good, but I have to admit that it sounds pretty professional—much more so than anything I've been able to produce.


Conclusion (and a question).
​

It’s me again. Sara. The one with the hands and the heartbeat.

So Jarvis is telling me to relax and enjoy the ride; and also, that it can write much more professionally than I can. It says that it probably won’t be taking over my livelihood soon. I'm left feeling both uneasy and insulted. This little Jarvis guest post is part gaslighting, part death threat.

What do you think? Should I spend between $29 and $119 a month to keep my enemy close?​
19 Comments
Chris Hogg
9/24/2021 02:18:10 pm

Hi Sara ---

You ask, "What do you think? Should spend between $29 and $119 a month to keep my enemy close?​"

My answer is, you should at least consider it, as Jarvis would probably have noticed and perhaps automatically corrected the grammar error in your question (i.e., the missing pronoun "I"). :)

Reply
Sara Rosinsky link
9/24/2021 02:34:42 pm

And no robot will ever have the sense of self-congratulation that you got out of your post. :)

Thanks for pointing out my mistake. I fixed it.

Reply
John Parsons link
10/26/2021 05:01:37 pm

My inner devil (and my inner Trekkie) are likely to crack wise with a "Resistance is Futile" one-liner. But the reality is more nuanced.

Yes, writing will become more automated, especially the kind that is mind-numbing from the get-go. Some of it is useful and necessary. A ton of AI writing will also be consumed by AI reading bots, whose purpose will be to extract actual meaning for busy humans. What will never be replaced is the need for writing that connects with actual human beings. Only real humans have what it takes to do that.

PS: The role of milkman has not disappeared, so you may need a different metaphor. In my part of the country, there's a dairy that still delivers organic milk (and other things) to your door! It's a bit pricey, but there's a growing market for it. Entrepreneurs always seem to find a way to our wallets.

Reply
Sara Rosinsky link
10/26/2021 05:14:17 pm

Thanks for reading and commenting. And for having a sane perspective.

Reply
Noel Rodrigue link
10/27/2021 04:49:01 pm

Sara, I take umbrage at your starting point: "Now I’ll instead ask it to write three paragraphs answering the question, “Should copywriters feel threatened by Jarvis and other AI?” (Edit—I directed it to go beyond three paragraphs.)"

You didn't REALLY think it was going to come out swinging with a YES answer ... did you?

I rest my case.

Reply
Sara Rosinsky link
10/27/2021 05:53:23 pm

It got there soon enough.

Reply
Noel Rodrigue
10/27/2021 06:03:01 pm

I thought the original question was biased in favour of the "NO, you shouldn't be afraid" side of the answer. Would it not be a good idea to test the other side? As in make it say "yes you should be afraid"!

Sara Rosinsky link
10/27/2021 06:07:24 pm

Here are the words it wanted me to put in my mouth: "I have to admit that it (that is, what Jarvis wrote) sounds pretty professional—much more so than anything I've been able to produce." If that's not fear-inducing, I don't know what is.

Stjepan link
2/26/2022 07:27:25 pm

Dear Sara,
I think that the more complex the tools that we use become – the more complex the behaviors and skills that they are replacing are – the more obsolete we become.
I like to say: “If our phones are now smart – what does that make us?”
I also used to replace my “Sent from my mobile phone” appendage to my emails with “Sent from my human self-enslavement device”
I am blessed to have lived in a time when there were no smartphones and constant onlineness (yeah, I just invented a word – Jarvis’d better catch up – and fast). It’s rather amazing how much things have changed since then.
For example, back then – if somebody asked you something on the street – and you didn’t know – you’d say: “I’m sorry, but I don’t know!” and you’d walk your separate ways.
Now, there is no such thing as “I don’t know” – there’s Google!
That’s what I do, at least:
Find myself pondering on a synonym for a word that I’ve used more than 3 times in a paragraph – let’s google it.
What was the name of that new indefinitely broad umbrella term for yet another spawn of political correctness that has reinvented original sin but only for white straight males – let’s google it.
But is it really “knowledge”? Do you really know it now because you got the answer in 2 seconds or did you just skim the top of knowledge without really understanding anything?
People often say to me that “if you really know something – then you should be able to explain it in the simplest of ways”. I think Einstein said that – and as much as I’m tempted to double-check that by googling it – for once – I won’t.
What people are really trying to tell me is to “shut the hell up already” because of my generally superfluous, verbose, and convoluted way of expressing myself.
And while I understand their sentiment – I usually do not respect it.
Explaining quantum mechanics in a “simple way” suddenly becomes “uhm, yeah, well, everything’s relative, right?”. Explaining cellular transcription and translation suddenly becomes “the mRNA is taking over my body!”. A scientific publication reporting that a new synthetic drug kills 31% of the cells of a cancer cell line in a culture flask becomes “cure for cancer found”. A Japanese research group using genetically modified cats to study and try to cure feline HIV becomes “the Japanese are insane – they’re making glow-in-the-dark pets (that the Chinese will then likely more easily find, catch and eat!)”.
Yeah.
Simple, easy… and often – completely false!
Everybody’s tech-savvy these days, haven’t you noticed? Everyone’s so tech-savvy that the term isn’t even used anymore.
Yet, if I had a dollar for how many times a year I need to help people install a damn printer, or reconnect their Bluetooth headset, or just simply understand that there is more than one type of USB cable – I could quit my day job right now!
I could go on and on with this (as I could with most things).
So, what about poor old Jarvis?
How long before it’s “It was the butler – in the library – with an Ethernet hub!” – how long before Jarvis strangles you with a Cat. 5e LAN cable?
I would say:
There’s nothing wrong with Jarvis, the A.I. that’s behind him, or the technology that produced both of them. Technology has this wonderful virtue of nature – the one humans call the bane of mankind, yet I see it as a blessing – indifference – wonderful indifference – it’s never good, but it’s never evil either – it just is.
The problem lies, as it always has done, with people.
In the past – lazy and dumb people would get replaced, eventually, by their harder-working and smarter human counterparts. Now, they’re getting replaced by their android counterparts.
One would then argue – yeah, well, but machines can think so much faster than we can – so, won’t the smartest and the hardest-working of our kind get replaced by machines eventually too?
Honestly, I don’t know, and I don’t really care. I know I’d like to have a lot of people I know replaced by machines – like my pizza guy, for example – because predicting when he’s going to burn the pizza is like flipping a coin to forecast the weather (the latter actually works equally well as the official weather forecast when you live in Denmark, by the way).
What I do know is that just because something is easier and it’s out there – doesn’t mean that we should use it – especially not to a point where it completely replaces our own capacity in that area ent

Reply
Stjepan
2/26/2022 07:29:24 pm

You Nazi blog cut my post in half! Here's the other half:

What I do know is that just because something is easier and it’s out there – doesn’t mean that we should use it – especially not to a point where it completely replaces our own capacity in that area entirely.
As long as the tools we invent remain our tools and not our masters – we needn’t fear Jarvis.
It’s quite scary to hear how many people are literally afraid of leaving their smartphones in the car, or at home, or even turning them off. Smartphone producers needed to “invent” an at-night auto-restart function just to make sure that the damn thing restarts every few months or so to ensure that all the updates get updated and so on.
I like to ask these people: “Wouldn’t you find it bizarre if you saw me walking around with a screwdriver in my hand 24/7?”
Scarily enough – people don’t understand how I can liken a smartphone to a hammer. And that’s not the smartphone’s or the hammer’s fault – again – it’s people.
Let’s end with another analogy:
Having a GPS in a car is an excellent tool, but it’s not a replacement for our eyes.
“But officer, Siri said to turn left now! Blame her for the 20 people I mowed down with my SUV!”

Reply
Stjepan
2/26/2022 07:43:43 pm

While we're at copywriters and editing, I can tell you another thing:
Editing and proofreading a 500-page book is a daunting task.
About a year ago - I had a paid subscription to a "smart solution" that, as I had hoped, would cut down the time I needed to catch all the typos etc.
Typically, I'd print my manuscript and go through it with my red pen - 2 times.
Long story short - I have cancelled my subscription because the damn thing caught pretty much only the most blatantly obvious typos, and while it was really good - 100% of the time - at informing that by using the word "salesman" and similar words - I am not using gender-neutral language - it missed 50% of all my typos and other mistypings.
Overall, I think that the software I used was designed for social media posts and emails and not much else - definitely not 500-page behemoths of books that I sometimes write.
Now my browser underlined the word "mistyping" as misspelled. Well, it's not misspelled - it's a word - and if it isn't - it is now!

Sara Rosinsky link
2/26/2022 08:15:55 pm

My Nazi blog. 😂 Right. Well, glad you finished up. Very interesting. Thank you for your insights!

Sara Rosinsky link
2/26/2022 08:22:24 pm

Also, I know some proofreaders and editors, if you want me to connect you.

Stjepan
2/27/2022 04:30:31 am

Nah, I'm alright.
I've been asking myself about whether I'd like to hire a proofreader and/or editor for a while now. Not because I feel I need one - but because it's always nice to have a fresh pair of eyes have a look at something.
It's quite a common practice in science - one gets so immersed in one's work that one gets blinded by it. And then if anything is still missed - there's always peer-review - and these vultures will pick your study apart because they've been asked to do just that - and they're chosen anonymously so you can't know who they are. You can only really forgive them because, eventually, you'll get invited to review one of their papers too.
However, when it comes to writing - in terms of style and storylines - I know exactly which "mistakes" I'm making - and I know exactly what an editor would tell me:
"You use too many words, you cannot have an 8-line paragraph that's one sentence, and that 11-page metaphysical discussion sucked the life out of chapter 7."
It took me a while to realize that to such an evaluation I'd naughtily say: "Yes, I know... I like it that way!"
The best reviews I've ever received from my readers went along the lines of: "I can only read your book during daytime", "Your book made me doubt my sanity - and yours!", "Your book gave my nightmares!" etc.
So, yeah, it's like, you know, how much positive feedback can a hangman expect? I hear that the entire hangman, sorry, hangperson profession is suffering from very poor job satisfaction, or at least so the surveys say.

Reply
Sara Rosinsky link
5/6/2022 02:41:54 pm

Did I never reply to this? So sorry—you're kind enough to comment on my blogs and then I go and ignore you! I hope you've forgiven me by now. :)

Reply
Stefan Ayers link
5/2/2022 12:53:38 pm

I recently tried out another program (Anyword) to see what it would do. (I had already tried out Jarvis). I gave the program a topic that would be appropriate for my site--the history of the exclamation mark--and the results were interesting. The prose was satisfactory. The facts--did you know that Aristophanes was a bookseller who created the semi-colon? News to me also.
I posted both articles on my site--the AI generated (https://thegrammarmechanics.com/5-things-you-didnt-know-about-exclamation-marks/) and my response (https://thegrammarmechanics.com/is-anyword-a-good-ai-writing-tool/) I'll add a link to this post because it supports the idea it creates writing that sounds decent but it won't replace writers any time soon.

Reply
Sara Rosinsky link
5/6/2022 02:40:31 pm

Interesting!

You'd probably like the book Shady Characters by Keith Houston. Also, there's a book about the semicolon by Cecilia Watson that's supposed to be good, but I haven't read it.

Thanks for sharing!

Reply
José Ramirez link
12/9/2024 05:40:33 am

You will never be replaced, because no AI has your integrity. Transparency, or passion for what you do. Stay strong!

Reply
Sara Rosinsky link
12/9/2024 05:55:13 am

Let’s hope you’re right! (And thank you.)

Reply

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