GPT-3 and Its Implications (Shawn)

GPT-3 is a human language and syntax algorithm created by OpenAI. It has provoked both notoriety and fascination with its ability to create text that is virtually identical to poetry, prose, and code written by humans. With just a prompt and perhaps a short introduction, it can create strikingly coherent and sometimes elegant samples. Just look at this Op-Ed in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/08/robot-wrote-this-article-gpt-3. It was written entirely by GPT-3 (with some editing and collating by human editors). 

Naturally, this has raised a wide variety of fears among engineers, philosophers, and the general public. Many fear that it may pick-up the biases of the database it was trained on or be used to generate effective misinformation, but I'm more interested in its effect on writing.

Now, just because GPT-3 is a robot, its voice is not entirely soulless. It is capable of creating poignant poetry and stories in addition to arguments and reports. However, there is one critical issue with the poetry or fiction produced by the algorithm that many have observed; it has no meaning. Although the AI formulated pieces that may have stirred your emotions, nothing it wrote had the same effect on it. Because of this, I predict that poetry and fiction written by robots will not play much of a role in serious literature. Although they may write some more frivolous works. In addition, it will grow difficult to distinguish if the work was by a human or a machine. 

I do not think GPT-3 will take hold in informative works either. GPT-3 was trained on many encyclopedias and nonfiction works, but actually writing almanacs or academic papers requires a human to decide what information is worthy of inclusion and how best to present it. However, I do think GPT-3 will be used in more trivial nonfiction works that do not require much research, such as instruction manuals, advertisements, and blurbs for books, cereal boxes, and television.

I think it is difficult to predict the exact effect GPT-3 will have on different types of writing. Maybe one day, it will gain the abilities to elegantly do research and present information, or maybe the public will grow jaded by not being sure if novels are written by humans or robots and consider the merits of both. Whatever the case, GPT-3 seems to have opened a box of worms that can't easily be closed.

Those are just my opinions on GPT-3. Comment on how you think GPT-3 will affect writing below!