ChatGPT Is Ruining Blogging And I'm Sick Of It

I hate ChatGPT

I'm livid as I write this.

I saw a LinkedIn post yesterday with 1,000 likes about how to steal the style of popular creators to write viral story posts.

With ChatGPT.

I SAW IT HAPPENING IN BROAD DAYLIGHT.

PEOPLE ARE LIKE "YES, PLEASE SHOW ME MORE ABOUT HOW I CAN STEAL FROM PEOPLE TO WRITE STORIES THAT NEVER HAPPENED SO I CAN PUMP THEM OUT TO GET THOUSANDS OF FOLLOWERS"

Why are we doing this?

Why are we lying to people, telling fake stories, and passing them off as real?

ChatGPT is SUPER COOL, don't get me wrong. I think it has its place in the toolbox of every writer. But, GULP, writing fake stories with it and passing them off as your own? Using the style of other writers?

I don't need to say any more, do I?

It's wrong. It's slimy. It's a cheap imitation, and if we continue publishing this garbage it WILL have REAL consequences later on.

I'm NOT talking about fiction.
I'm talking about writing a story in the first person using "I" and "We" and NOT telling people it was written by ChatGPT.

This is wrong.
WRONG.

Writing is SUPPOSED to be personal. It's supposed to be real and authentic and an expression of emotions that can inspire, move people to tears, or fundamentally change who we are.

I don't think we know all that we're giving up in the pursuit of EASIER in regards to ChatGPT. The stories we tell ourselves are the basis of civilization, countries, cultures, religions, and even sports teams.

What happens when this ethereal treasure is corrupted by the artificial, and we can't tell what's real or fake anymore?

That's a crazy thing to think about.

A few months back I created a Medium profile with ChatGPT just to see if it could write a story that could get into publication.

It did.

I got in to a publication. The entire story was made up and I even got a few comments from people telling me how brave I was.

That was all the proof I needed to see that we’re seriously in trouble as bloggers. And now as we get more used to ChatGPT, I’m seeing more marketers and businesspeople selling courses about how you, too, can write pristine posts with AI.

I’ve sold courses about how to write better blog posts since 2017.

60% of my students would take the course and never write a single word.
30% would take my course, write for a few weeks, then quit.
10% would take my course and never stop writing.

I should’ve seen this coming.

Most people don’t want to learn how to write well.
They want to learn how to make money with writing.

And that’s such a shame, because the personal satisfaction and fulfillment one gets from working tirelessly on a blog post and publishing it is INDESCRIBABLE.

I’ve been moved to tears writing things at airports, bookstores, and coffee shops.

It felt so good for my soul to express things it didn’t know how to up until that point.

And all of this can disappear with ChatGPT. A lot of people reading this might say “Oh Tom, you’re just jealous that a robot can write better than you.”

No no, dear reader.

I’m sad that tens of thousands of writers, possibly hundreds of thousands, will never feel the sheer bliss of unloading a burden from your soul using the written word.

I’m sad that a robot, despite writing so beautifully, will never FEEL what I feel when teardrops start falling on my keyboard.

I’m not jealous.
I’m sad.

I pity these people.

And I pity the world we’re creating where fewer and fewer people get to discover the power of writing.

I sent out a writing survey last month to my email list. I asked them what some of their biggest frustrations were writing online. Here’s one that stood out.

“There's SOO much content, which makes the internet so loud. But a lot of the content out there isn't all that great because it lacks personality, and is often written by a robot.”

Here’s the saddest part of all this..

The writing most people create with ChatGPT isn’t even that good to begin with.

“Crappy writing” ranked second on the long list of frustrations my audience had with writing online. The sheer amount of crap content.

I’ll tell you something scary..

I’ve NEVER had my audience tell me that before. I’ve done a lot of writing surveys, and it’s shocking that about 12 months after ChatGPT hit the mainstream, people are complaining about crappy content clogging their feeds.

It’s already here. We’re already seeing the negative impact of crappy ChatGPT “content.”

I realized one thing while writing this..

I’ll NEVER offer a ChatGPT course. Ever. I flirted with the idea in April of this year, but realized I get no satisfaction out of generating fake stories with a robot. And I’d feel like such a sellout hack if I taught others to do the same thing (and I could, believe me).

My whole thing is you come and learn how to write better because you love it. Because writing in and of itself is a gift, no matter whether you get 1 like or 1,000,000 likes.

And that’s something ChatGPT will NEVER be for people.

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