Illustration by Rich Hauck
Last month, I was feeling rather lazy, so had a “brilliant” idea: I would let ChatGPT write my column for me.
For those who don’t know, ChatGPT is an AI (artificial intelligence) model that lets a person use simple, plain-language instructions to answer questions and develop content, with responses rendered in human-like text.
You give it parameters like, “Write a story of 500 words about Harrisburg and impersonate TheBurg editor, Lawrance Binda.”
So, that’s what I did.
With thousands of bylines under my belt, I felt confident that ChatGPT had plenty to work with: news articles, features, columns, blog posts, editorials, etc. If they handed out Pulitzer Prizes for quantity, not quality, I’d stand a fighting chance.
So, off I ventured into our collective utopian/dystopian future, where I could sit back and let all-knowing AI do my job for me. Let’s just say that it didn’t work out as well as I hoped.
In all, I ran eight queries. Some of the content was chillingly spot-on. Some of it was funny. But far too much of it was just plain wrong—and wrong in creative, often alarming, ways.
I started out asking for a column about Harrisburg, imitating me. What I got was, well, something else entirely:
“Wandering the streets of Midtown, you might have observed the gentle transformation; the canvas of our town gradually being painted with strokes of amber, rust and gold. Small gatherings at Italian Lake now include the soft hum of conversation peppered with the rustling of leaves underfoot.”
Yikes! Flowery is not my style, and this text was as florid as Riverfront Park in the springtime.
Even worse, ChatGPT urged people to attend the “annual Harrisburg Harvest Festival,” saying it’s “just around the corner.” What in the name of pumpkin spice is that?
Unfortunately, this tendency to make up people/places/events became a common theme throughout my effort.
Disappointed with the first try, I narrowed my search. This time, I asked ChatGPT to write a column, mimicking me, on “development in Harrisburg,” a topic I’ve written about umpteen times. The program did a better job with this one.
The language was more restrained, though still often over the top (“Harrisburg is once again a canvas upon which developers and dreamers are painting their visions of the future”—ugh.). But it did rightly imitate my (too frequent) use of lists and categories to present problems and solutions.
Then there were the things that I’d never do. It quoted Robert Frost. It used the word, “Harrisburgians.” It said nice things about the state government. Sacrilege!
I actually ran this “development” query four times, adjusting the length of the response. I assumed I’d get the same basic essay, only shorter—but no. Each time, ChatGPT gave me a column that was unique, substantially different from the one before.
Hands down, the funniest version came when it spat out a piece it called “Harrisburg’s Development Dance: A City on the Rise.” In this essay, Harrisburg is engaged in a “dance of development” as “we waltz through the ongoing renaissance” and “master the art of that graceful dance.” Block that metaphor!
To my knowledge, I’ve never compared Harrisburg development to a waltz, a tango, the bump, the Hustle or any other dance, though ChatGPT did so six times in that one piece. It also, in two of the columns, had me advocating for development of the city’s waterfront—which I’ve never done.
Finally, I asked ChatGPT to write me a column about Forster Street, a subject I’ve addressed so often that even I’ve grown tired of it.
It correctly knew that—let’s be honest—I detest Forster Street. However, it had a hard time putting its virtual finger on exactly why.
State-owned Forster Street is overbuilt and dangerous. Its six-plus lanes vastly exceed the traffic needs between the bridge and the Capitol Complex. Meanwhile, it encourages reckless driving, foments blight and needlessly divides our city. As a pedestrian, I’ve nearly lost my life several times trying to cross it.
But, to ChatGPT, I don’t like Forster Street because of—potholes?
“Ah, those craters that seem to have a mind of their own, popping up unexpectedly like mischievous trolls.”
Not true. Kudos to PennDOT for maintaining pretty well its ugly, horrible, deadly road.
ChatGPT also thinks, for some reason, that Forster Street needs better lighting. It believes this so passionately that it simply fabricated several dramatic scenarios, presenting them as true:
“One elderly woman shared her harrowing experience of almost tripping on a broken pavement slab, barely escaping a fall that could have had life-altering consequences. Another recounted an unsettling encounter when she felt vulnerable, surrounded by darkness as she waited for a late-night bus.”
I’ve never written anything like that, and the fact that ChatGPT invented these false encounters on my behalf was the day’s most disturbing result. If ChatGPT worked for me, I would fire it immediately.
In the end, AI didn’t really save me time or effort, but it did make me feel better about my job. I logged off with renewed faith that artificial intelligence is no substitute for the vital, expensive, grueling work done by flesh-and-blood journalists, reporting daily on the real life around us.
Lawrance Binda is publisher and editor of TheBurg.
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