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- Writers across industries have expressed concerns that ChatGPT will take their jobs one day.
- But experts say that sites publishing AI-written content are penalized by Google's spam policies.
- They offered three reasons why it's unlikely that ChatGPT will replace them in the future.
Since OpenAI's ChatGPT was launched in November, writers across industries like copywriting, marketing, and journalism have been worried that it might take their jobs.
ChatGPT's ability to read, write, and absorb vast amounts of information has raised concerns about the risk of losing one's job to AI. The chatbot reached 100 million users in just two months — faster than TikTok and Instagram — as people experiment with it to probe its wide-ranging skills.
The media industry has been particularly receptive to the tool. After Buzzfeed laid off 12% of its workforce in December, it announced that it will use ChatGPT to generate quizzes and other types of content. Tech news site CNET also said it was using a ChatGPT-like tool to produce its articles.
One copywriter wrote in the Guardian that he was horrified it "took ChatGPT 30 seconds to create, for free, an article that would take me hours to write."
Experts, however, say the likelihood of ChatGPT actually replacing jobs in writing-based industries is low.
Alan Jacobson, chief data and analytics officer at software firm Alteryx said people are "intimidated" by ChatGPT because of the perception that: "It's going to replace me, it's a competitor."
Such tools will actually "help humans go further on their journey than before," he told Insider.
He said: "In quite some time we haven't really seen a technology breakthrough really displacing workers from the workforce, but it could change the type of work that people are doing."
Although ChatGPT might bring some changes to the workplace, here are three reasons why it's unlikely to replace you.
ChatGPT can't replicate human creativity or empathy
Sheeta Verma, a marketing consultant for startups based in California, said she's not convinced that ChatGPT is going to replace her because AI-generated content has telltale signs.
She said that some founders had reached out to her because they had been spammed by agencies sending them content written by ChatGPT. They requested that Verma redo the work submitted by the agencies and create better copy.
Verma said the difference between content written by AI and marketers is like "night and day."
"You will see that it's lacking that sort of human touch," she said. "A marketer is 100% a professional who has been doing this for years, who knows exactly how to make it fun, quirky, and to completely appeal to the audience."
Empathy is another skill ChatGPT doesn't have because we have "a higher order way of thinking about things," Jacobson said.
"We have beliefs about equality and justice, aspects of what is in our belief system that come out in our products and services as companies in the way we write, that the computer doesn't have."
ChatGPT can't beat Google's spam policies
Companies that publish content written by ChatGPT or other AI tools are likely to be penalized by Google's unbeatable spam policies.
"AI-written content has been against Google guidelines for over a decade," Edward Coram, the CEO of marketing agency Go Up said to Insider. "The spam guidelines are the main offenders where Google says this isn't really open to interpretation: 'If you break any of these rules and we catch you, we will penalize you.'
"There are less than 20 such rules and one of them is don't use AI-written content on your website. Just don't do it."
If users break Google's spam policies, their websites "may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all," the guidelines state.
The policies dedicate a section to "spammy automatically generated content" which includes text generated by automated processes without regard to quality or "text generated from scraping feeds or search results," — all things ChatGPT does.
ChatGPT will change the way we work, but it won't displace us
Businesses will "absolutely" use ChatGPT to help automate certain processes, but is unlikely to displace humans, Jacobson said.
Humans are needed to do "higher value stuff" and not just "mundane repetitive things" that can be automated.
"What makes businesses highly profitable is using humans to do these higher order things, these creative strategic thinking things that still are a long way from anything I've seen the computers able to really do. "
When Insider decided ask ChatGPT if it will replace people's jobs, it said that roles requiring "creativity, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence" are less likely to be replaced by AI.
When specifically asked about content writing roles, it said: "While AI language models can generate basic content quickly and efficiently, they still lack the creativity, emotional intelligence, and human understanding that is required to produce high-quality content that truly resonates with people.
"Additionally, AI models require human supervision and oversight to ensure that the content generated is accurate and appropriate.
"For now, the role of ChatGPT and other AI models in content creation is to augment and assist human content creators, rather than to replace them."