Can AI tools like ChatGPT replace humans in the media industry? Let the AI company tell you

It seems like the AI tools like ChatGPT have been increasingly disturbing the sleep of honest folks working with text, art, and video.

Every week you would get the piece of news that somebody has done this and that using automation, and now they don’t need people creating content for them.

And us being an AI company and all, we feel encouraged to offer our perspective on AI automation: it’s not that scary. We will still need people everywhere.

Let’s talk about that.

Rewinding on AI automation tools. What is ChatGPT?

Everybody knows what’s up, so let’s not waste any more time than we need to on this.

What is ChatGPT? ChatGPT is a language model that simply answers the users’ questions. Ask it to write ten reasons why puffed Cheetos are better than crunchy, or the other way around — it will do that no problem.

And that’s what people did.

Some started writing papers using ChatGPT. Others composed cover letters for their job applications. More people tried using it for writing articles, brochures, landing pages and even books. And the thing is — the results were very impressive. The language model managed to pull the writing which many people took as something produced by a human.

And some time before that, there were several other tools catching attention on the internet. Now, we have software like DALL-E 2 that can generate art based on prompts and reference imagery.

I’m sure you have seen art pieces popping up here and there on TikTok.

All of that got lots of people thinking — will tools like ChatGPT replace humans in the media industry? Has the time come already?

At the first glance, the quality of content seems to back that.

Or does it?

“A” is for “artificial” in AI, not “autonomous”

The stories about how AI tools such as ChaGPT makes content good enough you can’t tell it was auto-generated were the first we heard. But, as the software gained traction and more people got their hands on it, the cracks started to show.

Let’s go through each of those one-by-one.

Factual correctness

So, our fella ChatGPT has helped the students pass its work for their own, though upon closer examination some of the text revealed to include enormous amounts of disinformation.

Though the software seems like a powerful writing tool, it isn’t much of a researcher. It can scan the web for info, but it can not recognize the reliability of the sources it uses.

So, the copy on the flatness of the Earth will surely be on point. But that's not the point.

Plagiarism

Let’s be honest, most of the written things on the Internet not hidden behind the paywall are considered fair game by real writers, so the rule must remain for the AI.

But it gets more complicated with imagery.

There is a lot of art on the web, but most of it was — this AI thingy being new and all — made by real humans, who for the most part are not giving it away for free.

But in the case of auto-generated content, AI doesn’t make those differentiations. You see, in order to make an image at the user's request, the AI tool uses the data pulled from tons of images and art online and learns its tricks that way. Since AI cannot produce original images from thin air, it has to refer to some form of imagery.

As a result, sometimes the users get AI-generated images that were pretty close copies to the art pieces made by a human. No artist attribution, no shout-outs.

Summing up, automated content generation is good for making content in the strictest of terms. At this time, it cannot account for nuance in working with different kinds of content, whether it is producing original work or steering away from misinformation.

What activities AI tools like ChatGPT can replace?

Despite all the benefits complete AI automation offers at first sight, the downsides surely bring the enthusiasm down. On the other hand, people working with content-driven tasks are scratching their heads, thinking whether it is time to get that ol’ cardboard box out.

But let’s not get our spirits down just yet. There is value in using AI for your media automation needs, and you won’t have to lay anyone off.

Here’s what you gotta do.

Have AI and your media staff working with each other. You will be surprised how many things they can do better together.

We have already learned that AI can create content on its own, which is a big deal. But there’s still no knowing whether it may ever become original and free-thinking as the humans are.

That comes down to the way each of us perceives the world individually, which we reflect in the work we do. There’s no calculating nuance, creativity, and the managers' notes on your article or video.

Then, there are things for your video producers, writers, and cameramen outside of their creative workflows. They have to strategically think about the target audience, the company’s public image, the message they have to pass to the audience, what needs of theirs to address, and so on.

At this point, AI software like ChatGPT can’t replace humans in that regard. But it doesn’t need to do it — because media companies still have their staff who are more than qualified to handle that stuff.

It is the tasks that are more repetitive and tedious in nature that we can do something about. If you’re producing a documentary or some sort of video interview, there’s no place for AI in the writing room. But it can go ahead and offer talking points, write summaries, and draft social media posts.

It can even handle more serious tasks than that. Shoot a movie and have an AI tool make several automated trailers for it, detailing cast members, plot points, or showcasing action scenes. Then it can go on and crop the footage from landscape to portrait aspect ratio so it would look the best on vertically-oriented social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts.

Better yet, have it look for ad slots in your footage and replace those with your own. There’s no need to kill your eyesight for a couple dozen frames with a company logo on it. Get the AI on it, and leave your creatives to do their creatin’.

At the end of the day, combining your staff efforts with AI automation helps you cut back the time on laborious and tedious tasks, freeing that up for new projects that would bring in more value.

Bottom line

Ai automation tools have surprised everyone with how well they can produce content. Now, one half of the internet is making TikToks with SpongeBob and Lord Of The Rings art mashups produced by AI, and the other half uses ChatGPT to issue statements.

All of that makes people involved in said content creation wondering things. Managers and media company executives start thinking about the benefits of AI automation: what they can do with it to increase content production effectiveness. On the other hand, content creators wonder whether AI tools like ChatGPT can replace humans.

So let’s clear that up for everybody.

Don’t worry, the AI won’t take your job away. As good as it is, AI can’t offer creativity and originality so craved from content creators.

But it doesn’t mean it’s completely useless. Media executives can implement AI software to act as an assistant of sorts. It can source information, do research, draft things, offer initial data analysis, and perform a ton of other less creativity heavy tasks.

Leave your producers, editors, and cameramen to their jobs. Have the AI cut trailers, compile highlights, tag celebrities in the footage, crop the footage aspect ratio — all that.

If you’re looking for a way to implement Ai automation into your content production workflow — come talk to us! Reach us at support@cognitivemill.com or use the form below. We will talk about your process and figure out the pipeline.