I always thought having a career in a creative field like writing would save me from automation and being replaced by a robot.
But then, I found out about this tool called ChatGPT, which uses artificial intelligence to produce original copy on the topic of your choosing. I asked it to write me 200 words on cloud network automation — and it did, and it was half-way decent and made perfect sense.
I sat at my kitchen table in a state of shock. I foresaw a future of cut-and-pasted news and the further decline of tech journalism where reporters are replaced by AI. Then I fell into a deep — albeit short — depression. (I am not a glass-half-full person, you see.)
Surely, ChatGPT won’t replace us journos, I thought. I decided to put the little AI tool to a test — a duel of sorts.
OK ChatGPT, I said, you may be able to write an article about cloud network automation, but can you write a poem about cloud computing?
The duel
ChatGPT and I met at high noon in the center of a dusty ghost town. Tumbleweeds tumbled by. I was thirsty. My eyes watered as I squinted at its flashing cursor on the screen. We faced each other, turned and walked 10 paces apart.
Then we turned around.
Surely, my two degrees in creative writing for fiction and poetry will help me beat the robots in the long run, I thought while I waited for the little cursor to tell me, “System processing error.”
Then my newfound enemy ChatGPT produced this gem of a poem … about cloud computing.
Clouds in the sky so high and fair,
Drifting and shifting through the air.
Computing on the cloud, so vast and grand,
Storing and processing data on demand.
No need for bulky hardware or local storage,
Access your files from anywhere, without fail.
With cloud computing, the sky's the limit,
Your possibilities are infinite.
Scalable and flexible, it's a game-changer,
A revolutionary way to manage your data.
So let the clouds be your computing power,
And watch your productivity flower.
My hopes and dreams faded.
If artificial intelligence can write a decent article and a decent poem about (of all things) the cloud, what fate awaits us tech and telco reporters who have honed our skills in understanding complicated things like PON, OSS/BSS and Gigabit Ethernet over the years?
I guess we are about to find out.
There is always Silverlinings
Stephen Saunders of Light Reading founder fame and I are working together with the team at Fierce and Questex to launch a new site next week focused on cloud infrastructure. It’s called Silverlinings.
Yes, a brand-new news site like in the olden days at the turn of the century, in, like, you know, 2001.
“Why Silverlinings?” you may ask. Well aside from the obvious cloud reference, the name is entirely apropos considering the following:
First, the arrival of ChatGPT is set to destroy journalism in the near future. (I told you I was a glass-half-empty person.)
Silverlinings is going to be the antidote to all things ChatGPT. It’s real reporting, real interviews, real people offering real opinions and telling their real-world stories. Did I say the word “real” enough? You get the point.
Second, we’ve all been living a pretty dismal few years between lockdowns, remote working, war in the Ukraine, human suffering, climate change and a distinct lack of joie de vivre thanks to all of the above.
Silverlinings is aiming to be the silver lining to your day. We will have fun. Yes, fun is in store. While fun has disappeared from most trade pubs these days, we are bringing it back. What kind of fun, you say?
Well, ChatGPT is auditioning to be our in-house poet, and it may get the part. We may also take jabs at things that we think are fluff or marketing spin.
Here’s to you, cloud network architects
Last but not least, and probably something I should have mentioned first, as you may know, the entire world is pretty much running on the cloud. Work would not get done if it was not for the data centers, servers and operating systems that support almost every part of our lives. Even my dog Ripley is connected to the cloud.
The time to dig into how cloud network architects are working to do their jobs is now. If they are building it, we are writing about it.
Are you ready for Silverlinings? We are.
Sign up for the Silverlinings newsletter here.