Is ChatGPT / AI Going to Kill the Writing Jobs?

Students start using the AI software to "write" their research papers. Teachers don't care or don't know what to do about it. Are professors going to assign a writing homework in the future if it all can be plagiarized by robots and possibly undetected?

Elon Musk previously indicated that the reason ChatGPT was created was to end the need for homework related to essay writing because that sort of learning tool does not prove the intelligence of the student. He indicated the outsourcing of the task as the main reason for this. Since some students would rather pay someone to do the homework, the purpose for doing it is defeated. He believes that actual learning can only be proven through practical application of lessons.

While tools are being developed to prevent ChatGPT from rendering homework irrelevant, I believe that teachers will adjust their teaching style to this new technology. Homework may still be provided only this time, it will not be in written form. My suspicion is that the teachers and professors will go back to the old school way of grading homework through class recitation / oral exams. This manner of testing would still leave room for writers to have relevant jobs in the future.

Writers will have more of a text summary function for students who will be preparing for non written based exams. This will be done as a part of the learning evolution, which has not really evolved over previous centuries. When the need for written evidence of knowledge in the classroom ends, so will the academic writing industry.

Therefore, there is a need for academic writers to begin diversifying in the business to assure themselves of continued income within the next 2 years. That is the time frame by which the creators of ChatGPT and its counterparts predict the technology (and academic writers) will render homework and written testing irrelevant to the learning process. ChatGPT may kill academic writing jobs, but not all writing jobs in the future.

There are still some written tasks, such as medical research that will require both physical experimentation and results writing, which can only be done by human beings with specialized writing backgrounds. What will end is the jack of all trades writing field, not writing jobs in general.

Thanks, but the job as a freelance writer is not the future here? I thought about it but computer generated content is going to last forever now...

The job of a freelance writer is forever depending upon how well he adjusts to the situation. Find another niche to fill. There will always be a market for human writers, no matter how small. If there is none, then create one for yourself.

Most students and computer coding companies may prefer to use AI in the future, with minimal human intervention due to the speed and accuracy by which the AI produces content. The writer might be used for testing and program adjustments, in the case of coding.

Meanwhile, students would prefer to save their allowances by editing the AI generated paper to make it sound more like them by including relevant citations and text before passing it on for grading. They can also better avoid blackmail from writing companies and independent writers by using an AI. ChatGPT is a living and learning program that will eventually spew more human like text as it learns from its users. That will help students tremendously with their written homework for as long as the outdated form of intelligence assessment is used by the educational system.

In both scenarios, the AI user is in control and no longer in need of outsourcing the jobs to other people / writers. Therefore, the job of a freelance writer in academic and coding fields face a bleak future. That is my opinion only. Of course others could see it otherwise.

I've already had one new client contact me after getting caught using one of these programs, first. He shared that essay with me, and some of the sentences seemed pretty good at first glance; but almost none of the cited sources actually had anything to do with any of the corresponding factual/empirical information in those sentences. In some cases, the cited sources were nowhere to be found, and seemed to have just been made up. Likewise, various statements of ostensible fact elsewhere in the essay generated absolutely no confirming or similar results anywhere when Googled, which suggests that the information itself was fabricated by the program just to support the points presented. To me, it seemed the opposite of the many horrible ESL essays provided by many essay companies: instead of perfectly "sourced" (and formatted) work that looks like it might be a legitimate essay on the topic until you actually read it, the AI program wrote decent-reading English sentences whose "sourced" information either wasn't really sourced where indicated or was simply fabricated to sound real.

Now I know how the Luddites felt ...