Headless Body in Topless Bar and ChatGPT

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I finally got to explore and play within Chat.OpenAI / ChatGPT. I wanted to see what ChatGPT was all about. And experience the type of content one could expect to get from it. I’d been reading about people using it to generate blog posts, memos, emails, even slides, speeches and songs. I had heard that the text was beyond grammatically correct but accuracy, maybe not so. On that point it did not disappoint.

I started by asking,”Who is Paula Zirinsky?” And I immediately found out that I was described erroneously as a jounalist and television producer. In fact I had the identical bio to another Zirinsky, Susan Zirinsky. Not a good start for me and ChatGPT. And while I adore Susan Zirinsky, her accolades and accomplishments are hers and hers alone.

Then I asked, “What is Structura Strategy Group?” And ChatGPT came up empty, noting that it was not able to find any information about my company. It did, however, start with an apology.

...80% of the information we need is available online, as open-source data. What we do with that data, and how we progress our intellectual curiosity and investigation, is where it gets interesting

So then I asked, “How do you collect your background information?” And was told about the neural network trained on a massive dataset of text from the internet, books, articles, and other sources … ending with, “… it does not have a personal experience or consciousness, but it can access the information it was trained on.”

My last question was about LinkedIn – where I am fairly active – and asked, “Does chat.OpenAI use LinkedIn as part of its database?” And was told, “… it was likely – as it is one of the most widely used professional networking platforms, and a source of information about people, companies, and industries.” But in all fairness, it did say it was not sure if LinkedIn was one of its primary sources or the extent of the usage.

So what, based on my examples above, do we have:

Accuracy issues. Yes we have all seen caveats about having to check for accuracy when using ChatGPT. My experience becoming Susan Zirinsky is a bit beyond that since someone’s identity is involved. I can’t help but think, if someone did not know me, how would they know that the bio pumped out was not mine? And on the point of having to check for accuracy, might I remind you that today most people don’t bother to use the Editor option in Word. Or if they do, they don’t look at each suggested change, but rather quickly accept all of them, only to have awkward mistakes within their document – generally found by the person in receipt of it. Are we really to expect they would do more here with ChatGPT?

Limitation of the data it is trained and built on. I know I am no Susan Zirinsky. But I do have a public/digital profile (as does my company) on the Internet. Which seems to be missing completely with respect to the data built into ChatGPT. When incomplete data is entered in, misleading results tend to be pumped out. I ask, what else is missing and could ChatGPT ultimately rewrite facts and history? Just pick up an old fashioned newspaper (ok, search online) to see what is today, already a sensitive topic. Honestly, the opportunity for ethics issues might be potentially real.

The absense of personal experience, consciousness, and creativity. With ChatGPT we would never get another headline like Headless Body in Topless Bar. And that makes me sad. In an effort to make things easier and to get content consolidated without too much effort, do we risk losing the essence of business creation and creativity itself? Will we simply be repeating what the AI algorithms spit out? Images of the oversized people in the wagons going round and round in WALL-E are suddenly popping up in my head.

OK, I am a little sensitive about all of this. In February 2022 I published My Story: Becoming a Marketing Professional on Medium (and LinkedIn). In the article I note that, at a young age, I was surrounded by the birth of promotional marketing and advertising at its best. My mother, in the 60s (as in the 1960s) took me to work with her. It was a growing, successful business with a clear brand, mission, and purpose, created by marketing and advertising professionals. These were not just people with jobs — these were professionals creating something that otherwise would not have existed.

And certainly, ChatGPT fits in that category. Yet without the quirky, or the funny, or the clever thoughts. And without spin (since in theory our outputs are assumed to be correct or as correct as the inputs allow). Or without headlines like Headless Body in Topless Bar.

Yet, I must reserve judgment for a while longer. As the first one-of-its-kind out, flaws and bugs are to be expected. And, hopefully, as more data gets input, the end product will improve with respect to its breadth and accuracy. How that end product is integrated into everyday business use – or whether and how it will be used in a classroom setting – must still be fleshed out and debated. Just as footnotes are standard practice in a legal memo, will acknowledgment that ChatGPT was used become standard practice as well?

Certainly, ChatGPT has the potential to speed up the process of searching online as part of research – enter a well thought out query and you will get a well thought out response – based on the data inputs and training of the algorithm. Use of AI algorithms to search large databases for trends and indicators not easily seen already exist and are in use. It has been said that 80% of the information we need is available online, as open-source data. It is what we do with that data, and how we progress our intellectual curiosity and investigation where it gets interesting. While ChatGPT may be effective at finding that other 20%, unless trained to make conscious decisions, it is really about how we consciously use both the 80 and that other 20%.

Which all comes back to personal creativity and the art of making connections, connecting the dots, creating a new way of thinking, or even crafting a fabulous headline. Yes ChatGPT is in our future, but I believe it must be thought of as a tool, not a replacement for thought. And as a tool, it can be used as a way to begin to create and advance work product, but not to become the work product itself.

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Paula Zirinsky, the founder of Zirinsky Strategy LLC, tackles marketing challenges and problem-solving through branding, thought leadership, and intentional marketing initiatives. With over four decades of experience, she possesses a proven track record in identifying growth opportunities for global companies and has a knack for building the necessary infrastructure and teams to drive strategy, branding, thought leadership, marketing, and business development. A former Global CMO, Paula has held leadership positions at K2 Integrity (formerly K2 Intelligence), a leading risk advisory firm, and law firms including Morgan Lewis, Morvillo Abramowitz, Fried Frank, and Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft. Additionally, she has provided corporate marketing and communications counsel to Daimler-Benz AG, Mercedes-Benz AG, Daimler Chrysler, and Hanover Direct Inc. She can be reached at paula@zirinskystrategy.com

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