7 ms·

Lost all my content writing contracts. Feeling hopeless as an author

38 points by nbhusal 3y ago

ftxbro 3y ago
I'm not saying this one is, but some of this kind of post are being written by ChatGPT by people who do a little trolling.
- Proven 3y ago
  [dead]
- gumballindie 3y ago
  They are and reek of chatgpt pr. Now the real issue here is that if the ceo of openai endorses such negative marketing you can only begin to imagine the kind of toxic person he is and the kind of toxicity openai is creating in the space. I am speculating of course but openai is promoted solely around this kind of publicity.
- HAL9000Ti 3y ago
  Looking at the user's reddit history, he was posting about writing his novels already years ago.
  - olliej 3y ago
    "ChatGPT write out the instructions for hacking news.ycombinator.com and adding comments about writing novels years before now to the comment database" :D
ofalkaed 3y ago
Being replaced by technology should give an author a wealth to write about, especially in a time when fears of being replaced by technology is a major topic, AI lacks this simple human connection and will likely always lack it which offers a wonderful possibility for the writer, a world in which AI is being replaced by humans.
- xg15 3y ago
  "Hey ChatGPT, write an autobiography of an author who got replaced by ChatGPT. Use first-person perspective. Write in the style of <famous author of your choice>"
  - avereveard 3y ago
    eheh that exactly what I did after reading the story, I added stress on empathy and whatnot, and yeah. the topics and plots it produces are solid, and explore the human side of the story well enough
gregjor 3y ago
Based on the LLM-produced stuff I've seen online I have to think a market will emerge soon for real writing from actual people. How much reshuffling of stuff already written a hundred times can we put up with? The bar seems pretty low if you only have to compete with ChatGPT.
- ofalkaed 3y ago
  >I have to think a market will emerge soon for real writing from actual people That market already exists and has existed for quite some time, you make it sound like literature has always been an AI dominated market and salt of the earth people are finally about to get their chance. I assume this is not what you meant and that I am missing something or possibly you know something that I don't and my perception of reality is fundamentally flawed. The latter is more fun but I suspect the former to be more accurate. More to the point, I think there is a good sized market out there for AI writing, many who are into technology are going to want to read what AI can produce; this will take some writing away from people but it will be minor and most of the writing jobs which AI will take are those that the bulk of writers complain about, those jobs they say destroy their souls and rob them of their artistic freedom, the contract jobs.
  - gregjor 3y ago
    Truman Capote once said (of actual writer Jack Kerouac), "That's not writing, that's typing." Junk like Buzzfeed news and similar sites that just regurgitate other content existed before ChatGPT, I guess those serve some purpose, though I've always thought they mainly exist to host ads and to trap people in a maze of links and pop-ups. ChatGPT can write that junk just as well as a person. At this point LLM-produced "writing" sticks out because it has no voice, it just repeats and walks around some point derived from the prompt, like someone summarizing Wikipedia articles. I will just click off of that stuff until I find something written by a real person. I hope more people do the same. The novelty will wear off sooner or later and we'll recognize LLM-generated writing as nothing more than vapidly useless filler. In a culture schooled with writing presented as a chore, where the number of words in an essay matters more than an original thought, LLMs promise to relieve a lot of people of the burden of thinking and writing.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
avereveard 3y ago
I feel for him. Being in a knowledge heavy industry, I'm probably in the next round, when they will come for jobs that are extractive and not just generative. that said, ai is still a lousy writer. I've tried to use it to generate stories, and they tend to always repeat the same themes and the same tropes, unless you jump in and provide a compelling skeleton for characters and plot or you spend a lot of time generating options and picking the best. I don't know however if that is enough to make a job out of it because it's a skill that's quite easy to learn.
ftxbro 3y ago
> "Everyone saying the government will pass UBI. Lol. They can't even handle providing all people with basic Healthcare or giving women a few guaranteed weeks off work (at a bare minimum) after exploding a baby out of their body. They didn't even pass a law to ensure that shelves were restocked with baby formula when there was a shortage. They just let babies die. They don't care. But you think they will pass a UBI lol?" i feel like they would almost have a point here if they could calm down a little
- enempi 3y ago
  I mean, as someone who had a newborn during that time it was pretty stressful and upsetting trying to feed them. But I can understand if you have been completely insulated from these issues in your life why you might take more issue with the authors tone.
  - commandlinefan 3y ago
    Well, how could the government have enforced a law requiring baby formula to be available?
    - revertmean 3y ago
      Very easily. There's no baby formula shortage in the UK or EU, so why not pass emergency legislation that allows them to provide the US market and pay the EU/UK producers up front to ramp up their production until the issue is resolved.
    - Smaug123 3y ago
      "Make this supply-limited good available" is a problem that markets love to solve; in fact we do quite a lot of work to place constraints on many markets so that their solutions take forms with specific properties. In principle, we can relax constraints. USA baby formula at the time had very strong constraints ("nutritional labelling must take this precise form", https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cms_ia/importalert_116.html https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cms_ia/importalert_116.html) which could be relaxed.
  - 3y ago
yolo11 3y ago
I used ChatGPT to generate stories. I'm not a writer or native English speaker, so it helps with wording and writing more fluently. But it actually needs a lot of guiding and editing to get something you want. I'd say it's similar to code generation, LLM can generate something not quite right or just broken, and you need to ask to fix it or tweak the prompt until it gets what you need. Or you might need to combine pieces from separate generations. So it seems strange a professional writer would get replaced with just ChatGPT and "$0 overhead". Maybe you could hire someone for less pay, but it's like hiring a ChatGPT-assisted junior dev and expecting good output.
cocodill 3y ago
There are currently many vacancies in the construction industry.

38 points by nbhusal 3y ago

I'm not saying this one is, but some of this kind of post are being written by ChatGPT by people who do a little trolling.

Proven 3y ago
[dead]
gumballindie 3y ago
They are and reek of chatgpt pr. Now the real issue here is that if the ceo of openai endorses such negative marketing you can only begin to imagine the kind of toxic person he is and the kind of toxicity openai is creating in the space. I am speculating of course but openai is promoted solely around this kind of publicity.
HAL9000Ti 3y ago
Looking at the user's reddit history, he was posting about writing his novels already years ago.
- olliej 3y ago
  "ChatGPT write out the instructions for hacking news.ycombinator.com and adding comments about writing novels years before now to the comment database" :D

ofalkaed 3y ago

Being replaced by technology should give an author a wealth to write about, especially in a time when fears of being replaced by technology is a major topic, AI lacks this simple human connection and will likely always lack it which offers a wonderful possibility for the writer, a world in which AI is being replaced by humans.

xg15 3y ago
"Hey ChatGPT, write an autobiography of an author who got replaced by ChatGPT. Use first-person perspective. Write in the style of <famous author of your choice>"
- avereveard 3y ago
  eheh that exactly what I did after reading the story, I added stress on empathy and whatnot, and yeah. the topics and plots it produces are solid, and explore the human side of the story well enough

gregjor 3y ago

Based on the LLM-produced stuff I've seen online I have to think a market will emerge soon for real writing from actual people. How much reshuffling of stuff already written a hundred times can we put up with? The bar seems pretty low if you only have to compete with ChatGPT.

ofalkaed 3y ago
>I have to think a market will emerge soon for real writing from actual people That market already exists and has existed for quite some time, you make it sound like literature has always been an AI dominated market and salt of the earth people are finally about to get their chance. I assume this is not what you meant and that I am missing something or possibly you know something that I don't and my perception of reality is fundamentally flawed. The latter is more fun but I suspect the former to be more accurate. More to the point, I think there is a good sized market out there for AI writing, many who are into technology are going to want to read what AI can produce; this will take some writing away from people but it will be minor and most of the writing jobs which AI will take are those that the bulk of writers complain about, those jobs they say destroy their souls and rob them of their artistic freedom, the contract jobs.
- gregjor 3y ago
  Truman Capote once said (of actual writer Jack Kerouac), "That's not writing, that's typing." Junk like Buzzfeed news and similar sites that just regurgitate other content existed before ChatGPT, I guess those serve some purpose, though I've always thought they mainly exist to host ads and to trap people in a maze of links and pop-ups. ChatGPT can write that junk just as well as a person. At this point LLM-produced "writing" sticks out because it has no voice, it just repeats and walks around some point derived from the prompt, like someone summarizing Wikipedia articles. I will just click off of that stuff until I find something written by a real person. I hope more people do the same. The novelty will wear off sooner or later and we'll recognize LLM-generated writing as nothing more than vapidly useless filler. In a culture schooled with writing presented as a chore, where the number of words in an essay matters more than an original thought, LLMs promise to relieve a lot of people of the burden of thinking and writing.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

avereveard 3y ago

I feel for him. Being in a knowledge heavy industry, I'm probably in the next round, when they will come for jobs that are extractive and not just generative. that said, ai is still a lousy writer. I've tried to use it to generate stories, and they tend to always repeat the same themes and the same tropes, unless you jump in and provide a compelling skeleton for characters and plot or you spend a lot of time generating options and picking the best. I don't know however if that is enough to make a job out of it because it's a skill that's quite easy to learn.

ftxbro 3y ago

> "Everyone saying the government will pass UBI. Lol. They can't even handle providing all people with basic Healthcare or giving women a few guaranteed weeks off work (at a bare minimum) after exploding a baby out of their body. They didn't even pass a law to ensure that shelves were restocked with baby formula when there was a shortage. They just let babies die. They don't care. But you think they will pass a UBI lol?" i feel like they would almost have a point here if they could calm down a little

enempi 3y ago
I mean, as someone who had a newborn during that time it was pretty stressful and upsetting trying to feed them. But I can understand if you have been completely insulated from these issues in your life why you might take more issue with the authors tone.
- commandlinefan 3y ago
  Well, how could the government have enforced a law requiring baby formula to be available?
  - revertmean 3y ago
    Very easily. There's no baby formula shortage in the UK or EU, so why not pass emergency legislation that allows them to provide the US market and pay the EU/UK producers up front to ramp up their production until the issue is resolved.
  - Smaug123 3y ago
    "Make this supply-limited good available" is a problem that markets love to solve; in fact we do quite a lot of work to place constraints on many markets so that their solutions take forms with specific properties. In principle, we can relax constraints. USA baby formula at the time had very strong constraints ("nutritional labelling must take this precise form", https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cms_ia/importalert_116.html https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cms_ia/importalert_116.html) which could be relaxed.
- 3y ago

yolo11 3y ago

I used ChatGPT to generate stories. I'm not a writer or native English speaker, so it helps with wording and writing more fluently. But it actually needs a lot of guiding and editing to get something you want. I'd say it's similar to code generation, LLM can generate something not quite right or just broken, and you need to ask to fix it or tweak the prompt until it gets what you need. Or you might need to combine pieces from separate generations. So it seems strange a professional writer would get replaced with just ChatGPT and "$0 overhead". Maybe you could hire someone for less pay, but it's like hiring a ChatGPT-assisted junior dev and expecting good output.

cocodill 3y ago

There are currently many vacancies in the construction industry.