As writers, we like to tell ourselves that we’re in a profession that can’t be automated, not anytime soon anyway. But artificial intelligence and machine learning are being refined at a rate that should probably begin to worry us.

作为作家，我们想告诉自己，我们所处的行业无法实现自动化，无论如何都不会很快。 但是，人工智能和机器学习的发展速度可能应该开始让我们担心。

Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 (GPT-3) is a powerful language model that produces text that is remarkably human-like. It was created by OpenAI in San Francisco and is the third generation of their language prediction model.

生成式预训练的Transformer 3(GPT-3)是一种功能强大的语言模型，可产生非常像人的文本。 它由旧金山的OpenAI创建，是他们的语言预测模型的第三代。

In late July 2020, a blog post about productivity and overthinking reached the number one spot on Hacker News. Upon reading the blog post, nothing seems amiss. The author, who goes by the screen name Adolos, makes the case for boosting productivity by engaging in creative activities and forms of thinking. Overgeneralizations about the human mind and a couple of dubious definitions of different forms of thinking are used to justify the point — it’s not unlike most self-help and productivity articles that are already published and perhaps that’s why very few people failed to realize that this blog post was written by GPT-3.

2020年7月下旬，关于生产力和过度思考的博客文章在Hacker News上排名第一。 阅读博客文章后，似乎没有什么不对劲。 屏幕名称为Adolos的作者通过进行创造性的活动和思维方式来提高生产力。 关于人的思想的过度概括和对不同形式思维的几个可疑定义被用来证明这一点-与大多数已经发表的自助和生产力文章没有什么不同，也许这就是为什么很少有人没有意识到这个博客的原因。该帖子由GPT-3撰写。

Liam Porr is the college student behind Adolos and this experimental blog. In a “tell-all” meta blog post, he describes the process of using GPT-3 to generate content for his blog:

利亚姆·波尔(Liam Porr)是Adolos和这个实验性博客的幕后大学生。 在“告诉所有人”的元博客文章中，他描述了使用GPT-3为其博客生成内容的过程：

Over the last two weeks, I’ve been promoting a blog written by GPT-3.

在过去的两周中，我一直在推广由GPT-3撰写的博客。

I would write the title and introduction, add a photo, and let GPT-3 do the rest. The blog has had over 26 thousand visitors, and we now have about 60 loyal subscribers…

我会写标题和简介，添加一张照片，然后让GPT-3完成其余的工作。 该博客有超过2.6万名访问者，我们现在有大约60位忠实订阅者…

And only ONE PERSON has noticed it was written by GPT-3.

而且只有一个人注意到它是由GPT-3编写的。

People talk about how GPT-3 often writes incoherently and irrationally. But, that doesn’t keep people from reading it… and liking it.

人们谈论GPT-3如何经常不连贯和非理性地写作。 但是，这并不能阻止人们阅读和喜欢它。

Writers who engage in more journalistic and fact-based writing may breathe a sigh of relief knowing that GPT-3 does not do well when producing facts-based content. Porr also writes:

从事更多新闻和基于事实的写作的作家可能会松一口气，因为他们知道GPT-3在制作基于事实的内容时表现不佳。 波尔也写道：

There’s a reason I chose a self-help style theme for the blog. GPT-3 is great at creating beautiful language that touches emotion, not hard logic and rational thinking.

我选择博客的自助风格主题是有原因的。 GPT-3擅长创造动人的美丽语言，而不是硬朗逻辑和理性思考。

Porr set out to prove that the writing produced by GPT-3 could be passed off as something written by a human and he succeeded with a simple script and access to the API via a PhD student at his school. OpenAI granted access to the API to a handful of researchers in a private beta. The company chose to release an API rather than open-sourcing the models partly because it would give them insight on and a chance to respond to potential forms of misuse of the technology.

Porr着手证明GPT-3产生的文字可以作为人类的文字而被冒用，他成功编写了简单的脚本并通过其在校博士生访问了API 。 OpenAI在少数Beta版本中向少数研究人员授予了对该API的访问权限。 该公司选择发布API而不是开源模型，部分原因是这将使他们有洞察力，并有机会对滥用技术的潜在形式做出回应。

Porr isn’t the only one who’s proven how unnervingly human GPT-3 can sound. Manuel Araoz has also published a blog post chronicling his experience using GPT-3 which is best left for those who are interested to read on their own. (Seriously though, the post is well worth reading.)

鲍尔并不是唯一一个被证明人类GPT-3听起来令人不安的人。 Manuel Araoz还发表了一篇博客文章，记录了他使用GPT-3的经历，最适合那些有兴趣自行阅读的人。 (尽管如此，该文章值得一读。)

这对我们的写作和我们的未来意味着什么？ (What does this say about our writing and our future?)

Part of coming to terms with AI generating believably human-written blog posts now is reflecting on the state of the writing that’s being produced by actual humans. With self-help and productivity both burgeoning niches within the content creation industry, it’s a little frightening to think that artificial intelligence can pick up enough patterns to write blog posts that sound human. Could this be telling us that most of the advice in these niches are just recycled sentiments of the same ideas? Perhaps.

现在，与AI达成令人信服的人工撰写博客文章达成协议的部分原因，是在反思由实际人类撰写的写作状态。 自助和生产力都是内容创作行业中新兴的利基市场，认为人工智能可以采用足够的模式来撰写听起来像人类的博客文章让人有些恐惧。 这是否可以告诉我们，这些利基市场中的大多数建议只是具有相同观念的可再生情感？ 也许。

I think it also reaffirms what we already know but are hesitant to admit: that most of the advice is arbitrary and without substance.

我认为它也重申了我们已经知道的但不愿承认的事情：大多数建议都是武断的，没有实质性内容。

We read self-help and productivity articles because they make us feel better, not because they give us any concrete tools with which to transform our lives. They all pretty much echo the same sentiment: work smart not hard, show up every day and do the work, and avoid negativity.

我们阅读自助和生产力文章是因为它们使我们感觉更好，而不是因为它们为我们提供了改变生活的具体工具。 他们几乎都表达了相同的观点：聪明而勤奋，每天露面，做好工作，避免消极情绪。

While GPT-3 will likely remain out of reach for most laypersons for the foreseeable future, it’s not a stretch to imagine that it will eventually have large impacts on the content creation industry. While the technology is not perfect, if media companies chose to utilize GPT-3 for more feelings and emotions based content I suspect most content writers would be relegated to the task of editing and proofreading these articles rather than being paid to write their own. GPT-3 would allow companies to churn out content at a faster rate than ever before.

尽管GPT-3在可预见的将来可能对大多数外行人来说仍然遥不可及，但可以想象一下，它最终将对内容创作行业产生巨大影响，这不是很难的。 尽管这项技术并不完美，但如果媒体公司选择利用GPT-3来获得更多基于情感的内容，我怀疑大多数内容作家将被委以编辑和校对这些文章的任务，而不是自己撰写文章。 GPT-3将使公司以前所未有的速度推出内容。

We may also see a migration of writers shying away from opinion-heavy niches like self-help, productivity, and self-improvement to more facts based pursuits such as journalism and other facts based writing.

我们还可能会看到作家的迁移，从诸如自助，生产力和自我完善之类的意见重心的壁sh转移到更多的基于事实的追求，例如新闻业和其他基于事实的写作。

And in a market that’s already cutthroat to begin with, only writers who have already amassed a following of people who are interested in what they personally have to say may survive. I imagine the barrier of entry to actually making a living off of writing online will increase tenfold as writers are pitted against the mind-blowing efficiency of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

在一个已经开始剧痛的市场中，只有那些已经积累了对自己的话语感兴趣的人的作家才可以生存。 我认为，随着作家对人工智能和机器学习的惊人效率感到厌倦，进入以网上写作为生的进入障碍将增加十倍。

While it’s safe to say that technologies like GPT-3 won’t replace writers completely within our lifetimes, I predict that it will have tangible effects on the industry of written content creation within the next decade or two. It will be up to us to adapt.

可以肯定地说，像GPT-3这样的技术不会在我们的一生中完全取代作家，但我预测，这将在未来一两年内对书面内容创作行业产生切实的影响。 这将取决于我们如何适应。

Originally published at https://www.datadriveninvestor on September 15, 2020.

最初于2020年9月15日发布在https://www.datadriveninvestor 。

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