Compassion and ChatGPT

It’s time we addressed the elephant in the room. AI tools are all over the place. 

They’ve been in the water for a while, but after the introduction of ChatGPT at the end of 2022 it’s pretty impossible to ignore. The gist is: Everyone is talking (panicking?) about them. Everyone has questions, and lots of people have their own versions of answers. From “this is just a fad that’ll be over in a few years” to “AI is taking over- get ready to lose your job,” we’ve heard it all. As a marketing company whose core identity is rooted in messaging, we do a lot of writing. We want to acknowledge the presence of this behemoth of a change for the future of our industry, and share a bit about how we’re processing it as a team and in our work each day. 

The implications for website writers, email campaigns, social media managers, authors, and students are pretty crazy, given what ChatGPT has shown us it can do. But the question that so many people keep coming back to is: what are its limitations? Where would humans still win in a fist fight with these robots? These advanced AI platforms can write heartfelt stories, draft compelling argumentative essays, and pull on my heartstrings if I told them to. I can use it to get opinions about personal dilemmas and even provide encouragement if I wanted to! 

One of our Core Values at Murphy Marketing is compassion. We focus on compassion in everything that we write, every client that we talk to, and every website we design. 

AI can talk to me in a compassionate tone if I tell it to…but that’s the thing – it’s only going to do what I tell it to. ChatGPT doesn’t have the ability to be compassionate unless someone else tells it to. The compassion that it generates will seem emotionally intelligent because it’s learned the best compassionate language and stories from millions of resources. But those resources didn’t originate from ChatGPT – they came from other sources on the internet, which ultimately came from living and breathing humans. 

The humanity we access to (often without even trying or realizing it) is our superpower in comparison to ChatGPT. The compassion we write with is generated from ourselves, in real time. We all draw inspiration from things around us, but generating organic content is unique to humans – nothing can replace that. 

So if you’re a writer who’s panicked that your expertise will become irrelevant in a matter of years, or a business owner who doesn’t know whether to get a copywriter or a robot to write your marketing materials, or anyone else who has to make decisions about verbal communication with others – let your shoulders relax a little bit. Nothing in the world – not even the most intelligent AI software, can truly replicate what it means to be a human – to see the world with empathy and understanding. And that empathy is what’s going to make people feel the most seen and loved when you communicate with them. 

In conclusion:

We don’t think ChatGPT is evil, although we will use it with a careful hand in the future. It is so tempting, and so easy, to default to relying on AI technology – because it’s amazing! We’re grateful for the ways it can help with writer’s block and help people find words they can’t quite put a finger on. But at the end of the day, we’re not currently using ChatGPT in our writing. And we’re okay with that. Because as cliche as it might sound,  it just doesn’t compare to a human.