Technologies have and continue to control, supervise, and manipulate people’s natural abilities and capacities to perform a wide range of tasks, either directly or indirectly. As our analyst previously stated, from small to large chatbots, everyone has been concerned about how emerging technologies are replacing some human tasks or duties at work and at home. According to our analyst, the various forms of panic that are generated whenever new technological products are released by IT professionals will not stop because man, no matter what, needs to use his intellect to create tools, objects, and machines that will continue to make life easier for him.
Despite this, machines will never completely replace man’s intellect in all aspects. In light of the ongoing discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of ChatGPT, our analyst questions the tool about the possibility of it replacing media practitioners. Professionals in other fields have expressed concern about the tool taking over core processes of creating value for customers. ChatGPT’s interrogation and responses indicate that it cannot replace media practitioners because it lacks the ability to gather information, knowledge, experience, creativity, critical thinking, and strategic thinking required to provide superior and unbiased value.
Our analyst: Can you write news headlines for me about Nigerian 2023 presidential election?
ChatGPT: I can certainly generate some news headlines for you about the Nigerian 2023 presidential election, but please keep in mind that my knowledge cutoff is 2021 and the election is in 2023, so some events, candidates, or information may not be accurate.
Our analyst: Can you rewrite this news headlines “INEC final list: North-West, S’West top 93 million voter register”?
ChatGPT:
- “North-West and South-West regions lead voter registration with 93 million on INEC’s final list”
- “93 million registered voters in North-West and South-West regions according to INEC’s final list”
- “INEC releases final voter list with 93 million registered in North-West and South-West regions”
- “North-West and South-West regions dominate INEC’s final voter register with 93 million names”
- “INEC’s final voter list shows 93 million registered in North-West and South-West regions”
Please note that this is not a prediction or a news and it’s not based on any real data or facts, it is just a demonstration of the model’s capability to generate headlines on a topic.
Our analyst: It is obvious from the tool’s note of caution that users should exercise caution when using it, especially when writing headlines. Its responses to a request to change the headline on The Punch’s front page for January 12, 2023, are wholly inaccurate. While the newspaper reported that out of the 93 million registered voters, the north- and south-west regions have the largest number of voters for the general elections in 2023, ChatGPT completely altered the framing and meaning by highlighting the two regions as having the entire number of voters.
The Views of ChatGPT on Select Aspects of Media Industry
Public Relations
No, ChatGPT is a language model that can assist public relations practitioners in generating written content, but it cannot replace the strategic thinking, relationship building, and creativity of human PR practitioners. Additionally, ChatGPT lacks the ability to engage with stakeholders, build relationships and deal with crisis management in real-time, which are important aspects of public relations.
Journalists
No, ChatGPT is a language model that can assist journalists in generating written content, but it cannot replace the knowledge, experience, and creativity of human journalists. Additionally, ChatGPT lacks the ability to gather information, interview sources, and report on events in real-time, which are critical aspects of journalism. Additionally, human journalists have a broader set of skills such as critical thinking, fact-checking and ethical considerations that are important for accurate and unbiased reporting.
Advertising Copywriters
No, ChatGPT is a language model that can assist copywriters in generating written content, but it cannot replace the creativity, strategic thinking, and market understanding of human copywriters. Additionally, ChatGPT lacks the ability to understand the target audience and tailor the message to them. In advertising, creativity and ability to connect with the audience is key to creating successful ad campaigns. Human copywriters have a broader set of skills such as creative thinking, understanding the market and brand positioning that are important for creating effective and engaging ads.
News Editors
No, ChatGPT can assist news editors in generating written content, but it cannot replace the knowledge, experience, and critical thinking of human editors. News editors are responsible for overseeing the production of news content, fact-checking, editing, and ensuring that the content is accurate, balanced and unbiased. Additionally, they must be able to make quick and informed decisions on what stories to cover and how to present them. ChatGPT can assist in generating written content, but it lacks the ability to evaluate and make decisions on the newsworthiness, accuracy and ethical considerations of the content.
Fact-checkers
ChatGPT is a machine learning model that can assist in fact-checking news, but it cannot replace the critical thinking, knowledge, and experience of human fact-checkers. While it can be trained on large sets of data and can potentially identify patterns and inconsistencies in the text, it is not able to fully understand the context and nuances of the information it is presented with. Human fact-checkers are able to evaluate the credibility of sources, verify the information and cross-reference it with other reliable sources. Additionally, they are able to assess the implications of the information, and take into account ethical considerations when presenting the information to the public.
ChatGPT can aid news fact-checkers in several ways:
Automated Text Generation: It can generate written summaries of news articles, which can help fact-checkers quickly scan a large number of articles for relevant information.
Text Comparison: It can be trained to compare different versions of a story and identify any inconsistencies or changes in the text, which can help fact-checkers identify potential errors or inaccuracies in the reporting.
Data Analysis: It can be used to analyze large datasets, such as social media posts, to identify patterns and trends that can help fact-checkers identify false or misleading information.
Sentiment Analysis: It can be trained to perform sentiment analysis on a large set of text data, which can help fact-checkers identify bias or misleading information in the text.
Text generation: it can also be used to generate text similar to the input text, which can be used to detect potential plagiarism.
However, it’s important to note that ChatGPT is not a fact-checking tool and it’s results should be double-checked by human fact-checkers, it’s an aid to them not a replacement.
Note: ChatGPT’s ability to replace specific areas was written by ChatGPT itself.
