Writers and teachers are nervous about the increasing capabilities of chatbots, like ChatGPT.
One reason I don’t think excellent writers shouldn’t fear being replaced by chatbots is that chatbots alone can’t make an emotional connection with a reader by sharing life experiences.
For example, a good approach to create interest for business promotions is sharing the personal story of the creator of a product or service.
- Minoxidil was originally marketed as a hypertension treatment. A side effect was growing hair, so Minoxidil was repurposed as the active ingredient in Rogaine.
- Wheaties cereal was developed thanks to an accidental spill of a wheat bran mixture on a hot stove.
- Warfarin, a blood thinner, was originally marketed as rat bait.
- Walt Disney got the idea for Disneyland when he took his children to carnivals and amusement parks and thought about how family entertainment could be so much better.
Another example is creating an emotional connection using an ongoing contact email to customers ranting about a personal experience that you had.
- Did you see a shopper help another shopper with a difficult child at the Mall?
- Did you see a clerk give extraordinary service at Nordstrom?
- Did you see a Maître D’ ignore or be rude to a customer at a restaurant?
- Did you see a motorist stop to help another motorist push a stalled car out of an intersection?
- Were you on hold for two hours trying the reach a representative at the IRS?
These experiences and how we respond to them make us human. HUMAN!!
People mostly like to do business with other people — especially when those people express an interest in their problems and their lives, and have experiences like them.
A writer can “feed” experiences into a chatbot to help shortcut a writing assignment.
A chatbot can’t originate them — it can’t give what it doesn’t have.
A human is required to create great written communications.