Why ChatGPT can’t replace expert writers

Plus how to utilise AI tools to create bigger impact without losing the heart of your content

Since ChatGPT’s explosion of popularity, it’s dominated conversations in my social circles, in my church and in my social media feeds. I’ve been asked my perspective on it as a writer, and also heard many people gush about how amazing it is at writing for them. 

As technology continues to advance, the way we use it to communicate changes too. The recent rise in ChatGPT and other sophisticated AI tools has been one technological advancement that has captured the attention of what feels like all people. 

AI isn’t actually new. We utilise AI technology every day on small scales within other software and tools, but it doesn’t have the same ‘create something from nothing’ that ChatGPT shows us. 

All the hype has raised a big question when it comes to communications - what is the place of a professional writer if AI is now so competent?

The power and purpose of storytelling

Compelling communications in the Christian ministry and organisation space is centred around storytelling. 

Storytelling is showing, not telling. It is taking the stories of your people and demonstrating how your ministry has been impactful to them. Now storytelling is not just the written word, it’s also videos, snippets on social media, interviews in church or at events, and much much more. 

AI can write a funny impersonal narrative when asked, but it doesn’t do the hard, creative work of extracting the right story from someone’s experience and shaping it into content that tells part of the bigger story of your ministry work. You need a communications expert to do that effectively!

The importance of storytelling is in the people you are working with and for. People connect with people, we don’t just want the facts. We understand impact better when we hear about how it truly changed someone’s life. 

What AI can do for storytelling

You don’t have to throw out AI entirely - it is still a useful tool for other parts of the storytelling process. Ask ChatGPT to write interview questions for you to use, or to create a checklist for publishing and promoting your story once written. 

But as with any suggestion made about using AI, use your own wisdom and discernment (and editing power) to make what it produces appropriate and useful for you. After all, it is a computer and it doesn’t know what you know about people and place!

Sharing values through your voice

Another thing AI struggles to do is capture your unique voice. 

Tone of voice is one of those jargon phrases that we marketers like to use. It means your unique way of communicating through the written or spoken word. Your tone of voice might be conversational or professional, it might involve the use of specific words or phrases that are key to your vision or mission. 

While yes, AI can learn some of these things, it still lacks the person behind your vision and voice. 

As a communications agency, we work with lots of ministry organisations and churches to produce written content. Whenever we start working with a new ministry, there is always a lot of absorption of the look, feel and tone of the organisation. We explore the vision and values of the organisation and work to understand how they want to be represented when it comes to language and format. 

This is a crucial part of expert communications that results in a better connection between an organisation and their audience.  

What AI can do for your voice

AI can help create consistency in your voice by creating a framework to detail your desired tone of voice. Ask ChatGPT to create a tone of voice template, and take the framework to your team to begin filling in how you want to represent your organisation. Taking it to your team is an important part of building ownership with your tone of voice and the people who are often communicating using it!

The human behind the machine

We don’t exist in a vacuum, as people or as organisations. When we communicate as a ministry organisation or as a church, the heart of Jesus is behind it and this is something technology lacks. 

As we tell stories of real people and a living God, we give further dignity to their stories by giving them our time and attention. AI is powerful for augmenting our processes and creating shortcuts or easier starting points, but it’s worth considering why you are creating your content and how to do that in a way led by Christ.  

Listening to one another and developing people’s stories of life with Jesus is worthy of our time and energy.