Is Chat GPT an existential
threat to PR & journalism?

Impact on the Media

While we will continue to discuss the merits of individual journalists and media channels, we should recognize the historic and ongoing role of the media in how societies have been shaped and evolved. There is countless evidence of how in autocratic governments (and in times of war), the media is silenced or (worse still) perverted to provide propaganda. Imagine a world where AI, not people, determine what's 'newsworthy' or accurate. What would (and now 'could') that do to our public discourse?

People in the loop

While humans are fundamentally flawed and known for making ethical and factual mistakes, they at least bring humanity and consequences into the mix. When the US military introduced the controversial drone technology used for remote military strikes anywhere on the planet, they had at least considered the consequences of machines determining whom to target and how. After much debate, they chose to keep people in the loop and ultimately in charge of the chain of command.

Will (and can) this be the case when solutions like Chat GPT are researching and writing the news?

A lesson in humility

The scientific community widely believed that splitting the atom was an opportunity for the world to produce clean and free energy. Instead, this innovation released the most terrifying weapon race in history.

As Robert Oppenheimer (head of the Manhattan project's secret weapons laboratory) witnessed the first nuclear weapon detonation on July 16, 1945, a piece of Hindu scripture ran through his mind: "Now I become Death, the destroyer of worlds".

It took the genuine prospect of nuclear annihilation for the world to attempt to regulate the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Still, today, leaders like Putin hold the threat of atomic destruction over our heads like the sword of Damocles.

The impact on our ability to communicate

A great deal of research shows schools delivering lower literacy levels across the developing world. In Australia, that decline is most dramatic in written skills. We sometimes forget the power of writing in communication as a form of personal development and expression. The song that makes you cry, the movie that makes you laugh, those unique expressions of feelings are who we are.

Schools worldwide are now debating whether Chat GPT will be available to students to use in schools. Some have already gone so far as to ban the technology. Supporters of Chat GPT argue that this is the technology that these children will be using in the business world, so using it now will give them a competitive advantage. In response to the 'competitive' argument, I have this share.

In high school in the '70s, I did computer studies, where I learned how to program a computer to draw a house using punch cards. By the time I graduated college, we were using PCs. The technology I was using in high school was already redundant by the time I entered the workforce. To say that children need to learn a specific branded tech to be competitive is absurd and intellectually lazy. What school is really about is learning critical thinking, communicating, and interacting with others and the world.

Is Chat GPT an existential threat to the PR profession?

If Chat GPT is an existential threat to journalism, then it can be argued that it is an existential threat to the entire PR profession. You could argue now that there will always need to be a 'human in the loop' to approve content created for the media using AI tech; however, you need to remember that Chat GPT has already been tested to write and grade academic papers. What happens to PR professionals if that can happen with Academica? Do PR professionals go the way of typesetters and finished artists? Does the ability to write a Press Release become irrelevant if that Press Release is reviewed and ignored in millionths of a second by AI?

While I may sound like Luddite throwing my wooden shoes into the machinery, now is the time to discuss the actual impacts of this technology on society, asking questions like, 'can we even write laws to protect societies from unintended consequences?'

Food for thought.