Here at Agency Iceberg, we have had many discussions with PR Talent recently about the hot topic of whether it’s okay, from a PR perspective, to use ChatGPT to write media releases and put your name on the work.
As you can see below, from almost 400 votes, ‘No’ seems to lead the way here in terms of ChatGPT not being considered as ‘cheating’ or ‘plagiarism’ but it is used more as a tool or guide for research and framing comms.
This question was so topical that it received over 32,322 impressions last week.
How close have you got to tipping over the line between fact and fiction? Robot and human? Is it even that big of a deal to lean on a little tech to help us get a wriggle on when writing multiple PR releases per day?
Some of the poll responses we received were:
“(It’s fine to use ChatGPT) as a tool, do not rely on it completely!”
“It will only be considered plagiarism if there is the same concept as plagiarism done by humans”
“Just a tool”
“It’s a tool much like a calculator”
“If you use it to completely write your press release then yes, if you use it as a tool for research and organisation then no”.
This last response poses an interesting debate because, like anything comms-related, you never want to 100% rip off content and pass it as your own, but that’s the whole point of this chatbot and virtual assistant developed by OpenAI and launched in 2022.
ChatGPT is simply based on large language models, enabling users to “refine and steer a conversation” towards a desired length, format, style, level of detail, and language.
Yep, it’s a tool or guide, and once you inject your own opinion to comment on what is ‘spat out’ then we weave a narrative that is uniquely our own.
Just leaving a ChatGTP untouched is fraught because this is still a tech tool and much of what is tapped out can seem clichéd and robotic, so give it some personality!
As Artur Glukhovskyy states for GrowthTribe: “In most cases, there’s nothing here to get upset about. And for general purposes, AI is a great tool to assist with tasks and increase productivity. The concerns arise when we apply ChatGPT’s immense capabilities to education and when it’s used to “cheat” work. Universities have expressed concerns over their student’s potential misuse of ChatGPT and other AI tools.”
The better news is that, according to the Director of Marketing at Crossroads Trading, Gina Nowicki, the positives smash the negatives for PR teams, and there is no chance PR roles will become obsolete! “It’s just perfecting the expert skills of PR professionals; in turn freeing up more time for fine-tuning communications and building bigger PR strategies.”
So, do you think we used ChatGTP to pen this piece? 😜
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