“There’s an article on ChatGPT in The Washington Post,” my wife said from the couch yesterday morning.
“Yes, I’m sure there is,” I snapped, having just read three other stories online and heard a story on CBS’s Sunday Morning. Some glib David Pogue bullshit about how writers and creative people won’t be replaced by ChatGPT, but rather by writers who know how to work with ChatGPT.
I was seriously considering writing my own goddamn Washington Post article about the essential human element in any writing worth reading. But I’d already had a Bloody Mary and a beer back, and was feeling a little fuzzy. Maybe ChatGPT could write it for me.
Nope.

I slammed my laptop shut, and poured myself another beer.
This is the latest plague on our society seeping into grade school classrooms, CEO offices, and more. Social media sucks societies abilities to think and now ChatGPT takes over people’s ability to write. I thought our next generations were supposed to be the future and make it better. At this rate, they will be the robots with no individual thought, no passion and/or compassion, and no ability to write. Take someone’s education and you can control their life. Did you see it was used on the House Floor this week? – https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/01/25/nation/massachusetts-lawmaker-asked-chatgpt-write-his-floor-speech/
Apparently, it was to make a point about the “good” and the bad. Great…now our elected officials will use it too. Talk about a slippery slope?
It’s creepy indeed, Raegan. I remember feeling the earth move when the Internet came into our lives almost 30 years ago … remember when I first suggested that I would put hyperlinks into something I was writing TO GIVE READERS A CHANCE TO GO OFF IN ANOTHER DIRECTION?!?!?! What????????
I am equally incredulous that professional writers would do anything but scream at the top of their lungs (even in vain) against writing-by-ChatGPT.
I can only hope that I’ll somehow be equally amused at my current incredulousness 30 years from now, when I am 83.