to fear new technology

THERE’s no doubt that when ChatGPT was released by OpenAI just before Christmas, it was like a thunderclap across the internet. Make no mistake: the arrival of a functional, smart artificial intelligence ‘chatbot’ is a seismic development in the history of technology.

Some immediately predicted the elimination of tens of thousands of writing jobs, from journalism to PR. I don’t agree –instead, I think it will enhance them and allow them to get more creative. There were similar fears when we replaced letters with emails in the 1990s –and, as we all know, that particular technology has created more work rather than less.

What I have found ChatGPT to be most useful for so far has been idea generation and structuring, rather than actually writing. I think most people have ideas for books, podcasts and plays, but working with ChatGPT has been interesting for fleshing those ideas out.

When it comes to writing, at the moment, ChatGPT most resembles a calculator in my mind. Like with calculators, it will still be a skill to know how to use them best and extract the most value out of them.

In Downing Street, I was famed for citing research from from the Edelman trust barometer which said that 51 per cent of Brits felt that innovation was going too fast. My point was as a government you cannot and should not want to be in a position where you are attempting to stop innovation from happening, but you should be relentlessly working out how everyone can benefit from it. That will be our biggest challenge when it comes to ChatGPT, as with all new technology: how do we skill people up in it and make them use the best of it? As for writers, a country whose history includes William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens should not fear this next chapter in the history of the written word.

£ Events are back with a bang, and for once I was delighted to receive an email from the editor of this newspaper entitled ‘Important’. It included an invite to the City A.M. awards on Thursday 2 March. With four chancellors since the event last year, it will be a terrific evening to see the best and brightest of the City come together to celebrate what the City does best. It promises to be, as usual, a brilliant evening –with a legendary afterparty.

£ At Jimmy’s Jobs, we did some polling with Focaldata on how people were feeling about their jobs for 2023. I was quite surprised that 40 per cent of people said they would be likely to move jobs this year, despite cost of living pressures. Almost one in ten, meanwhile, said they didn’t think their job or role would exist by the end of the year. So while that shows there are clearly fears about economic contraction and automation, it should at least be a boon year for recruiters.