How long before AI takes my job as a copywriter?

The grinding gears of progress are actually a meat grinder.

Image © 2012 Julie R. Neidlinger

Sooner or later they come for your job.

Unless you don’t have one. Or won’t take one. Or are like cousin Eddy from National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, living in poverty because you’re holding out seven years for a management position.

Anyway.

Several ghostwriting clients have requested articles about AI as relates to their particular industry. The articles I’m being asked to write are an interesting mix of acknowledging that a shift is happening, while delicately tiptoeing about embracing the inevitable while reassuring readers it’s a good thing and no, you won’t lose your livelihood to AI.

“AI won’t isn’t a replacement for humans. It augments us,” is the mantra. “AI needs us for prompts and input. It can make us more efficient and effective.”

Let’s set aside Chaos-GPT which was developed to destroy humanity, and consider that statement. Right now, that’s still kind of true, but I’m not sure if it will be in a few months. Days. Minutes. Set a Google Alert on AI and you’ll understand what I mean.

Anyway, in order to write about AI, I have to begrudgingly sign up for various AI tools—something I didn’t want to do—so that I can understand them. This one is from a free account in Copy.ai:

It’s just too easy.

It feels like cheating, denying the cranial struggle and further weakening the little gray cells that have already been decimated by internet searches, smartphones, and Wikipedia. It’s not terrible output by any means, but I feel terrible about it. (This doesn’t mean it won’t make a sweet research tool for the last-minute client deadlines, not gonna lie, though some AI tends towards scraping and plagiarism more than others.)

These are the kinds of ads I am served up in various places now:

I know of a few bloggers who are open about using AI to generate all or significant portions of their personal blogs, making a point of noting the good output they’re getting. I’m guessing there are probably a lot more writers doing it but unwilling to admit it publicly.

For the record, I write my own stuff.

I would have to, in order to have sentences this convoluted.

Even further, my photos and art are made by a human. If I use AI to create art, perhaps at gunpoint, I will let you know.

“I’m not actually worried about the whole AI thing,” I told my friend.

That’s not based on thinking it can’t have an impact on what I do, but simply that I’m not going to spend time worrying about it. My long-held theory—that if you’re willing to clean toilets you’ll have a job of some sort—is a theory that still sticks in my head; many an office toilet I’ve cleaned and would do again. People gotta eat and when they do…job security.

“I’m glad I’m not a young person heading into college right now,” he replied.

That I agreed with.

After watching “Borrowed Future” about the nightmare student loans have become (a documentary every high schooler and school counselor should be required to watch), and the woke garbage being served up on campuses, I’ve been in the I-don’t-know-if-I’d-go-to-college-now camp for a while. I’d already heard one man tell of how his daughter, in her second year of studying graphic design in college, had switched majors because she saw the writing on the wall when it came to the cost of her education in contrast to its value if AI took off in the design world.

So I’m not worried, but I have zero doubt I could be replaced.