AI & I am a retired writer and editor, currently doing freelance work.

Job and task

I am a retired writer and editor, currently doing freelance work. – Letter writing, creating new content, and feedback about existing writing

AI evaluation

Much of my work involves helping others improve their writing by fact checking their text, proofing, enhancing its clarity, or making it more powerful. The only AI I have routinely used is Grammarly and the editor feature in Microsoft Word for a final proofing.

For this assignment, I asked ChatGPT to write two letters and two creative pieces, and I asked Grammarly for editorial feedback about some of my own writing.

ChatGPT
Letter 1 was to be a slightly technical argument about national security matters, to be sent to a US senator. To write it, I needed to be conversant in the language and history I was referring to. ChatGPT created an excellent letter in seconds, expressing what I wanted to convey.

Letter 2 was to an attorney, demanding that he provide the information I have been requesting for months. I gave ChatGPT an outline, and the resulting letter was pleasant but firm and sounded as if someone with legal chops had written it. I never could have written this letter myself.

Creative writing: For a project I am writing, I need riddles and knock-knock jokes about global warming. I asked ChatGPT to write a global warming riddle. It provided an excellent rhyming, long-ish riddle. A couple of days later, I asked ChatGPT what the origin of the riddle is, for attribution in case it was borrowed from someone. ChatGPT said it could find no record of this riddle and speculated that it “could be an original riddle crafted for educational or awareness purposes.”  If I use this riddle in my piece, I surely must credit Chat GTP as the author, which feels weird to me, so I’m not inclined to use it.

The knock-knock jokes it provided, however, were terrible. ChatGPT does not have a sense of humor.

Grammarly:
I uploaded a page from a story I am writing and asked Grammarly to “give me ideas for improvement.”  The ideas were good, something an editor would suggest about the writing style and language choices. Then I asked Grammarly to “improve it.” Grammarly made the changes it had suggested, and the writing was, indeed, improved.

I think AI is very close to being able to do my job, although I often disagree with suggestions if makes for wording or style, when proofing a document.

Keeping up to date

AI is being folded into so much word processing software and is working in the background. I have not paid much attention until now because I wasn’t using it myself. I have freinds who use it often, at least for a first draft of written work or as a final review. I’ve also noticed that the fees being charged for freelance editing seem to be getting lower and have wondered if that’s due to AI.