Kip Winger and the Smells Like Teen Spiritization of Content
And those sure are some pretty skis...
Hello Gobbledeers,
I started writing this week’s column over the weekend after playing around with the new AI writing tool ChatGPT. In the ensuing 3 days I’ve seen roughly 73,000 articles, Tweets, and LinkedIn whatevers (linkies?) about it. I generally don’t like to write about what other people are writing about, but what I’ve seen is that most of those articles fall into three camps:
Students will never write another essay without using this, and that will transform education in some sorta way.
Look at this vaguely amusing thing I had it write.
This is cool, but don’t worry it’s not going to replace our* jobs.
(*our = writers)
That last part sounds familiar, as I believe we heard it from typewriter repairmen. Also, blacksmiths. And cassette player salespeople.
We’re all kinda screwed, and I wanted to tell you why.
“All Right, We’re Finished”
A few weeks back I wrote a bit about some of the new AI-based writing tools that have recently come out, and how far AI has come etc.
Over the past few days you may have seen people posting examples of copy that was written by a newly released tool called ChatGPT, and, uh, holy crap is it impressive (my favorite is this AI-generated thingy of how to remove peanut butter from a VCR, written as a bible verse.)
In a 2012 oral history of MTV called I Want My MTV, Kip Winger, of the hair metal band Winger, has one of the greatest moments of self-insight and self-awareness in the history of rock ‘n’ roll, made even more unlikely by the fact that Mr. Winger sang a song called “Seventeen” about the specific challenges he faced when falling in love with a girl who is one year younger than eighteen.
There are few moments in life where it’s clear there is a before and after. One day, “Cherry Pie” was on MTV,** then the next day it was gone. One day there’s a Berlin Wall, the next day there is not. One day man hasn’t been on the moon, the next day he has.
(**I know that “Cherry Pie” is a Warrant song, not a Winger song, but also, samesies.)
ChatGPT is “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and I am Kip Winger.
I’ll now list a set of assumptions:
ChatGPT (and its ilk) will not replace writers.
Until they do.
In the next 6 months someone will publish a novel written by ChatGPT. It will not be great, but it will show what AI writing can do. Then there will be a zillion think pieces about how writers are Smells Like Teen Spirit and not Kip Winger, and they will be correct.
Except where they are wrong. Because for those of us who work in the software Gobbledy Industrial Complex (tm), we are Kip Winger. You know how often you read a software company blog post, or website content or whatever and think to yourself, “Man, any barely sentient moron could write this garbage”? You are almost correct. A non-sentient moron could write it, and that non-sentient moron’s name is ChatGPT.
We are about to hit an inflection point (or maybe we already have?): where content that says nothing - with no point of view - can be written by AI. Go look at the website of the company you work for. Go see how much of it contains new ideas and a voice and humanity. Go, I’ll wait here. (Humming “Seventeen” quietly to myself…’You ain't seen love, ain't seen nothing like me…’). Welcome back. None of it, right? Yikes.
What’s terrifying is that ChatGPT is already able to replicate different styles and different voices and mash them together - like in that bible verse VCR thing. And here’s a bit of what it came up with when I asked for some content about the benefits of content management systems, but written like Public Enemy lyrics:
[Yeahhhhhhhh boyeeeeee!!!!!!!]
“That your content is protected from hack and attacks” is some Chuck D-level work right there (the rest…maybe not so much.) Yet!
I’m asking myself the same question I think we should all be asking ourselves: In a world where the first generation of AI writing can come up with 95% of what those of us in the software world write, how do we co-exist?
The optimistic outcome is that companies that care about building a brand will see that it’s very easy to produce fairly generic content, and they will try to differentiate by allowing their content to have a strong voice. Humans will write that voice.
The non-optimistic outcome (ie, the one I’m certain will occur) is that companies will say, “oh hellz yeah I’m going to pay $0 to have all of my content written, and then pay a tiny amount to someone to clean it up a bit.”
We’re in a post-Smells Like Teen Spirit world, whether we want to admit it or not. As a wise hair metal band leader once said, “Easy Come, Easy Go.”
Underused Marketing Strategies, Part 12: Turning a Negative into a Positive
One of my favorite underused marketing tactics is to find out what customers hate about you, then embrace it head-on.
Because it’s very easy to pretend that you’re the greatest thing since, um, Winger’s 1990 masterpiece In the Heart of the Young. But if people think you’re more like Winger’s 1993 pile of vinyl turds Pull, then you come across as disingenuous. And God knows marketers are nothing if not ingenuous.
Which is why I truly truly loved this J Skis ad shared with me by longtime Gobbledy reader Bobby P. Take a look:
How many brands would reply to that review with, “We’re so sorry you didn’t like our skis, we promise we’ll consider making boring-ass skis next year…here’s 10% off”? (Answer: all of the rest of them).
Bravo, J Skis.
And finally…more Gartner!
Wait - that’s the “BASIC” process mining technique????
As always, I couldn’t be more thankful for everyone who reads this. Sharing Gobbledy also makes me happy. Hiring me to help you with your messaging makes me even happier. I have references. :)