Go On, Fire Your Copywriter

​As a copywriter who doesn’t have a backup plan, I’m not afraid of AI – for a couple reasons:

1. I’m an editor

Some folk are not. They prefer writing from scratch, they’re true concept creators. They don’t like to take what someone (or something else) has come up with and turn it into what it was always meant to be. It’s too messy for them.

I love messy.

AI will give you a first idea, a first draft (very first, I’ve never seen something pumped out that’s ready to go) but not a finished draft… yet. That works for me. It’s actually quite similar to some of the client stuff I edit.

2. It’s no different than a template

Besides the ongoing and slightly worrisome issue of plagiarism, AI generated content really is no different than the templates I put together using best practice. The thing about all templates and AI is it’s a great starting point for just getting *something* on the darn screen. See Note 1.

Heck, we even created a copy generator of our own back in 2021, to help busy real estate agents with their (often pretty boring) listings. 

3. Erm. This:

So, I gave ChatGPT a whirl because I’m never averse to seeing something on my screen of death besides untouched nothingness, and I wanted to see what the fuss was about.

Talk about fuss.

Hang on, I’m going to do a copy paste in a mo, but first, let me tell you what I asked it to do. I thought about what I’d most feel sorry about getting replaced by a machine to do: write emails. Okie doke, let’s see.

I asked ChatGPT to write me a funny email about business with geese as an example. I mean, it was pretty terrible. Something my son could put together if I gave him a string of sentences and asked if he could put them in random order. I tried a few variations, because further questions seem to be the way to go with ChatGPT to get the AI juices (do they have juice?) really flowing.

It got a bit better, then went sideways, so I started a new project and asked it to write me a funny email with a business lesson.

Are you ready?

*Again, please note – these are NOT my words, this is a copy paste from AI generated copy from ChatGPT*

I hope this email finds you in high spirits and ready for a good laugh. Today, I want to share with you a comparison that has been on my mind lately: Doing laundry is like running a business.

Here’s why:

1. Separate the Whites from the Colors: Just like in business, it’s important to categorize and separate things to ensure the best outcome. Mixing everything together leads to a mess and a ruined product.

What the actual heck?

Yeah, I had to read it twice to ensure that’s what it really said. It’s just not a great metaphor in anyone’s language. Even artificial intelligence. And that’s the biggest reason I’m not too fussed about AI generated content:

it can’t have soul.

Sure, ChatGPT and other AI generators can string words together. Sometimes they make sense.

But they don’t have the humanity to read the sentence at the end, understand the nuances and think,

is this really what I want to write?

So far, only humans can do that.

And AI is good for some things, ChatGPT seems pretty swish at it, actually: Googley research. This means it can churn out, at lightning speed, instructional copy. Is it always accurate? Probably not, but no less accurate than the information you can Google with your own fingers and take as truth. That means it’s going to give you great summaries for when you’re writing the Features section of your copy. Helpful, yes?

So, by all means, go press buttons, get a few ideas. Personally, I like the brain fires that come from using a tool like Answer The Public more, even though it’s definitely lost some of its charm since canning the old, grizzly dude with the beard as the face of the tool!

But whatever you do – do not. I repeat: do not let anything like this write your final draft.

Save that for humans.

Some Crisp Copy links may be affiliate links - like the ones in this blog. Hello, recurring income is amazing and don’t we all want to work smarter? Howbeit, I’ll never recommend anything I don’t think is absolutely the coolest thing since Botox parties. Also, howbeit is the grooviest word in this post. Yes, totally copied this disclaimer from the bottom of my emails - I'm so amused I'm fully prepared to repeat myself.