ChatGPT continues to get a good deal of play, including an appearance on CBS Sunday Morning.

It’s a neat tool, but I’m not using it to write The Nine or any of the posts on my site or for my clients. Here’s why.

It’s Not Accurate

Creating a bibliography is a manual process. Ideally, it’s the type of thing that ChatGPT could easily handle.

I pasted some texts that I’m quoting and have influenced my thinking. See its response below:

These are wrong. If you can’t tell me who wrote a book, why should I trust you to make arguments for me?

My Spanish is decent. I wouldn’t hire an interpreter who routinely confused words—and neither should you.

Pride

I’m big on bringing my receipts.

When I hold the first copy of a new book in my hand, I feel a sense of pride. I know how much work went into it. Even if ChatGPT churned out quality text, knowing that I cheated would cheapen the experience for me.

Lack of Sourcing

I’m big on bringing my receipts. There are over 200 endnotes in the manuscript for the new book from reputable sources. Sometimes I have to dig to find a stat or study from a reliable outlet, but that journey makes me confident in my results.

Editing Takes Longer Than Starting From Scratch

ChatGPT is good but imperfect. I find that making tweaks to sentences takes me longer than just writing them correctly from the get-go. What’s more, writing from scratch allows me to enter flow state.

I Don’t Suffer From Writer’s Block

At the risk of being immodest, I don’t. If anything, I’ve got too many ideas pinging around my noggin. Such is life as a sponge.

I Have Developed My Own Writing Style

Over the years, I’ve become a better and snarkier writer. Let’s say, though, that I used ChatGPT.

Intelligent readers of my books would sense that something is off. Why am I using a generic tone on this one? And, for God’s sake, where are all the Seinfeld and Breaking Bad references?

Perish the thought.

Simon Says

GPT-4 is supposed to be sick, although OpenAI’s own CEO vows that people will be disappointed.

I’ll give it a shot but, for the reasons described in this post, won’t be using it as my writing assistant anytime soon.

Feedback

What say you?