Behind the Chatbot ChatGPT lies a lot of potential, but many are also afraid for their jobs. An author has now reported how ChatGPT took over her workplace.
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Who is it about? Emily Hanley is a freelance writer and comedian and wrote texts for various companies. These include, according to her own statement, for example:
- Articles for websites and brand blogs
- Social media posts
- and email marketing campaigns.
In an interview with Business Insider, she reports how she lost her job because of ChatGPT. Because employers and clients found that AI is not only cheaper but also faster.
She herself says: If a robot can do your work cheaper, it will do so, and you will lose your job.
Fewer and fewer orders from clients
This is how she lost her job: Hanley recounted that she initially received fewer and fewer orders: She used to get 10 orders per week, then only 5, then 3, and finally just 1 single order per week.
When she asked her boss what was going on, he explained: Clients were no longer willing to pay for writing texts if the writer could not also handle email management and other tasks.
Most clients were small businesses, start-ups, and young brands that were adapting to new technologies to save costs. And with that, the author became uninteresting for the companies.
What happened next for her? Although she was not fired, she also no longer received orders to work on. For her, that was tantamount to a dismissal. Afterwards, she applied for new positions:
In the next three months, I applied constantly for positions in content and copywriting. With each week that passed, I expanded the scope of my search, with each week that passed, I expanded the scope of my search, and desperation pushed me like a mother with a shy child further and further.
Initially, she turned down a well-paid job: A company was looking for a copywriter to train its artificial intelligence. Afterwards, her work would likely have been replaced by the AI she would have trained herself. She was not interested in standing on the street again after the fixed-term 6 months because then the AI would have taken over her job (again).
During a job interview, she wished she had followed her father’s advice to become an electrician. That is at least a job that, according to the inventor of ChatGPT, cannot be replaced by AI.
She thought her job was safe from AI
At first, she thought that her job must be safe from AI. After all, why would anyone suddenly replace her tasks with a robot? This was not only the case for her but also for many other colleagues. However, she believes her worldview was too naive. She says in the interview:
I naively assumed that artists and creatives would be safe from automation technology, for how could something replace the wonder of the human spirit – and even if it could, why would we want that? Aha! Today I know that even in the most creative industries, creativity never comes before the end result. If a robot can do your work for less money, then believe that is exactly what will happen.
What is Hanley doing now? Later, she became a “brand ambassador.” She stood in various stores and offered samples of mineral water to passersby. She is not really happy with that, but at least she can pay her bills.
And she is not the only person who has lost her job to AI in recent months. The company “Challenger, Gray & Christmas” investigated how many people have lost their jobs due to AI like ChatGPT, and by May 2023, that number was already in the thousands:
