Chat GPT
ChatGPT takes minutes to download and start using.
When I mentioned at a recent staff meeting that I was thinking about writing about ChatGPT for my column this month, intern Jane Houseal, a UW-Madison journalism major, said that was a great idea. The new tool that relies on artificial intelligence and allows users to ask questions and give directives to generate text and images is apparently a popular topic for conversation among her peers — and a major concern.
“J students are worried they will be completely out of a job,” she said. “It seems to learn quickly.”
ChatGPT is currently open to the public and free while OpenAI, the company that launched the chatbot in November 2022, continues to research and collect feedback on the program. There is also a paid subscription version called ChatGPT Plus. Like other AI technologies that fall under the umbrella of “large-language models,” it can recognize, summarize, translate and generate text and other content based on knowledge gained from huge datasets.
There’s been a lot of buzz about ChatGPT. One recent article in The New York Times provided examples of how 35 “real people” are using it for “work, life, play and procrastination,” including for planning a garden, workouts and meals. And there have been a slew of stories about ChatGPT’s potential impact on journalism — how it could change the way journalists do their work. Even so I hadn’t given the issue much thought until I saw a recent Facebook post from Phil Brinkman, the longtime city editor of the Wisconsin State Journal.
He wrote about how he experimented one weekend with the new tool, asking ChatGPT to write a news story from a Dane County Sheriff’s Office press release. He shared the news brief a reporter wrote and which actually ran in the paper; a rewrite of a version generated by ChatGPT (after he had given it basic pointers on journalistic style); and a third version generated upon Brinkman’s instructions to build in drama and interest.
Brinkman’s observations: The writing style of the second version was wooden but serviceable. Also, the chatbot took the request for some added drama “as license to make stuff up.”
His conclusion? “I think all of our jobs are safe (for now).”
In an interview Brinkman says the process was like “working with a very beginning reporter,” with the bot making rudimentary mistakes and the editor giving specific and basic feedback. “Right now it takes at least as much work as it does working with a reporter,” he adds.
Brinkman wants to make it clear that his weekend exercise was driven by curiosity and not related to any policy or directive related to his paper or Lee Enterprises, the parent company of the State Journal. “We are in no way using AI in any capacity here in this newsroom,” he says. “I’m sure it has been discussed at the corporate level, but in our newsroom it has not even come up,” he adds. “It really is at this point still a curiosity.”
Inspired by Brinkman, I tried my own experiment. I thought I would see what ChatGPT would do when asked to write a blurb from a neighborhood association email about Cycropia’s upcoming shows at the Orton Park Fest. Here’s the transcript:
User (me): Write this news release up as a news blurb for the newspaper: Orton Park Fest, will see one significant change as Cycropia Aerial Dance moves away from performing in the 180-year old bur oak which traditionally served as a setting for 28 years of aerial entertainment. Parks Department officials consider the tree to be nearing final days so Cycropia will move to a portable rig provided through MNA’s 2023 grant process. We thank Cycropia for the kind footprint in the park that they have always demonstrated. There’s more on the story here. We encourage you to visit Orton Park often this summer and meet our longstanding and beautiful neighbor that is this bur oak.
ChatGPT
Orton Park Fest, the popular summer festival, will feature a significant change this year as Cycropia Aerial Dance moves away from performing in the 180-year-old bur oak. According to Parks Department officials, the tree is nearing its final days, and so Cycropia will perform using a portable rig provided through MNA’s 2023 grant process. The organizers have expressed their gratitude to Cycropia for their long-standing contribution to the festival and encouraged visitors to appreciate the beautiful bur oak during their visits to Orton Park this summer.
User
Please rewrite to indicate that Cycropia will still be performing, but will perform using the portable rig rather than the tree.
ChatGPT
Orton Park Fest, the annual summer festival, will feature a change in its traditional setting for Cycropia Aerial Dance’s performance. Due to the 180-year-old bur oak nearing its final days, Parks Department officials have provided a portable rig for the aerial dance group to perform on, as opposed to the tree that served as their setting for 28 years. Despite this change, Cycropia will still be performing, and the organizers have expressed gratitude for their continued participation in the festival. Visitors are encouraged to appreciate the beauty of the bur oak during their visits to Orton Park this summer.
I was impressed that the chatbot responded quickly and correctly to my prompt, and while the text is serviceable, I would not publish as is. Both lacked any mention about what was special about the troupe performing in the tree and, therefore, why the update on venue was noteworthy. So I provided one more prompt: “Can you tell me what was special about the dance troupe performing in the bur oak tree?”
ChatGPT generated a third version of the blurb, with this additional line: “The tree’s unique features provided a natural backdrop for the group’s performances, adding to the beauty and uniqueness of their routines.” I liked the use of the phrase, “natural backdrop,” but the rest sounds stilted. And there was still no indication of how people connected with this tradition.
I went back for another round, asking the chatbot just that.“The tree provided a unique and beautiful setting for the aerial performances, and the tradition of performing in the tree became a cherished aspect of the festival for many attendees,” it wrote in the latest version. “For some, watching the performances became an annual tradition, and they looked forward to seeing the dance troupe perform in the tree each year.” Not bad.
Lucas Graves, an associate professor of journalism at UW-Madison, says there has been a lot of chatter at the J-school both about the implications of ChatGPT in an educational context — Can you detect if students are using it? What does this mean for grading? — as well as for the practice of journalism, where it raises “really large questions,” including whether it can replace and do the work of a reporter.
But, adds Graves, “In practice, newsrooms have been incorporating a range of automation technologies much more incrementally over the years, often in very sort of banal ways. And sometimes in pretty interesting and exotic ways.”
The Panama Papers investigation (based on leaked legal documents that revealed the extent of offshore financial corruption), for instance, relied on AI to do some of the analysis of the massive data set from the leak, he says. Also, some large news organizations rely on AI to help with moderation of their comment sections while fact-checking sites have used it to check claims.
What is different about ChatGPT is the “way it is able to interact with humans and to respond to natural language queries in a way we haven’t seen before,” says Graves. “And it’s quite impressive.
“We’re not used to computers that respond to queries that are like queries we might ask of another person,” he adds. “It doesn’t feel like we’re interacting with a machine.”
