How does GPT tinkered content make people feel?

by | Jul 4, 2023

Is your use of GPT giving the right impression?

Last week I saw a comment about me and my book that blew me away. I took a screenshot and shared it on FB and Instagram, because the words moved me.

Truly moved me.

I believed the words.

But after a conversation with Jan Tegze, about other authors using GPT to write their entire books, I have since realised that the words in this comment weren’t the person’s alone. I became sure that they used GPT to embellish what they wanted to say. In fact, ZeroGPT put it at 60% likely, citing specifically the words that, sadly, moved me the most.

The GPT embellishment worked positively, until it didn’t.

Now I feel really embarrassed that I fell for these kind words. I feel ashamed that I believed the embellishment. To be honest, I feel conned, cheated and sad.

Is this really the direction we humans are allowing things to go?

Not only am I intelligent, I am highly intuitive. I can usually spot BS a mile away. This has rattled me. And I have now deleted the posts because of how foolish I feel that I didn’t see through it. I also feel for any friends who saw it and also thought the comment was genuine.

Intent

I reckon this is the last thing this person intended for me to experience. In fact, they were probably surprised by my initial gushing reaction. And your intent, by using GPT or any other form of AI, may also come from kindness and/or wanting to create connection.

But you must take the time to think through its impact. Is it creating a better human experience or creating something unexpected?

Over the years most people have stopped believing the polished PR videos that would come out of companies. Instead, preferring the ones taken on the fly on someone’s iPhone because they seem genuine. The rougher, the better. The more authentic.

Do you think we could get to the point that we don’t believe the written word?

I already feel the need to add #writtenbyme on all my posts and articles, and in my upcoming books. But what about your job adverts and outreach messages? Are they now too good to be true now they’ve been GPT’ed? What about the social posts you write with GPT that represent you as a hiring professional? Are they believable or would it be better to use your own authentic voice?

Yes, I know, I am going against the populist flow. That’s nothing new.

Human experience

‘Recruiters being replaced by AI’ is the latest in the long list of tech threatening your job. And maybe I’ll be proved wrong in due course, though I will probably still think the Internet had the greatest impact on the industry but I digress.

If recruiters and companies do actually care about candidates (which some do and too many only talk about) is AI actually going to create a better experience for them? Sure, it can cut manual tasks and give you back time, blah, blah, but does that really mean the human experience will get better.

Hopefully, but I think AI will become yet another layer of BS that candidates need to wade through. A lot like getting through that well known AI video assessment tool that sparked concerns a few years back. It can be such an obstacle to nervous interviewees, that sites like Voomer have arisen to help candidates ace it… for a fee! Is that how AI will really be used? 😬

In The Robot-Proof Recruiter I said that most recruiters aren’t taught how to use tech to create human connection. I still think that having all of these tools is like owning a grand piano but only knowing how to play Chopsticks.

Use AI if you think it will genuinely create a better human experience. Of course, if it actually does, that makes sense.

But first, SLOW DOWN!

It is time to really think about how we employ AI. Where it will create value. Learn about it. Understand it. Know what you are doing. Because recruiters do need to understand it and its uses to ensure they future-proof themselves, but it is only one more tool in the recruiter-kit.

Also think about what you are doing with your intellectual property (IP).

For example, also publishing this article on LinkedIn does not hand the content ownership to LinkedIn. While writing here, on my own blog, and posting on the Internet makes content ownership more challenging, because the regs around it are country specific, but it is easier to see my name attached to it or to trace its origins. Not that that stops my content being ripped off and reproduced by others without credit; all content creators experience that.

But what happens to your original thought with GPT? It’s not regulated so we simply don’t know yet. Even if you are just plugging in your IP to have the grammar corrected, what happens to it? There is nothing to say it’s not being gathered and reused without any source or credit. Again, we simply don’t know, yet.

But as for the question of AI replacing recruiters and creating a better candidate experience…

Don’t believe the hype.

The vast majority of candidates will not want to – knowingly – give their search to AI, not when it comes to something as critical as their livelihood!

P.S. ZeroGPT put this at 100% human written. Hive Moderation said the same.

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