Ever heard of a little thing called ChatGPT? Probably. But if you haven’t, that’s okay. That just means you’re not spending all day, 24/7, reading the latest artificial intelligence (AI) news—good for you!

ChatGPT is an AI tool that can help people with research, writing, software coding, and more. If you’re a writer or an author, should you be using it for your work? And are the rumors true? Will ChatGPT replace writers and authors? *Gasp!*

We’ll walk you through everything you need to know about ChatGPT, and how writers around the world are using it to level up their craft.

What Is ChatGPT?

The nerdier definition of ChatGPT is that it’s a natural language processing program (NLP) built with the latest AI technology. NLP allows it to mimic whatever humans give it to work with. Users put in prompts and it spits out answers from around the Internet, conveniently compiled in a nice little package. You can ask it to write emails, essays, software and even have conversations with it.

And ChatGPT is totally free. So it’s no wonder that millions of people around the globe are experimenting with it. In fact, over 100 million people downloaded it just two months after it was released, making it the fastest growing software application of all-time. People are using ChatGPT to help them get their work done faster or just to brainstorm new ideas.

ChatGPT has also become the AI darling of the news media—with its 15-minutes of fame turning into more of a full hour of fame. ChatGPT isn’t going away. But it’s actually just one of many AI tools out there. Meta (formerly Facebook) and Google are developing their own AI software and Elon Musk is even getting into the mix.

Who Created ChatGPT?

The company behind ChatGPT is called OpenAI. They rolled out ChatGPT for the first time on November 30, 2022. Led by CEO Sam Altman, OpenAI also created an AI art generator called DALL-E-2 along with an automatic speech recognition program called Whisper.

Here is how OpenAI describes its revolutionary software:

“We’ve trained a model called ChatGPT which interacts in a conversational way. The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer follow-up questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests.”

We have to admit. That’s pretty cool. But before we look at how you can use it as a writer, let’s understand a little more of how it works.

How Does ChatGPT Work?

First, you sign up for a ChatGPT account and then you can start giving it prompts. These are the inputs the program needs to kick things off. (By the way, this is a good reminder that AI is not about to rise up and conquer mankind any time soon. These systems still can’t think on their own and require real flesh-and-blood human beings to provide inputs.)

Here are some examples of AI prompts:

• “Explain quantum computing in simple terms”
• “Give me 5 creative ideas for a 10 year old’s birthday”
• “Please provide a list of 10 male pen names for a dystopian fiction novel”
• “How do I make a homemade ice cream sandwich?”

ChatGPT then scours its database of knowledge from the web and uses its predictive model to provide you with the best response. It draws from Big Data, neural networks, statistics, information sources across the web and deep learning. A lot of places.

ChatGPT’s answers range from practical, insightful, informative, funny and sometimes wrong. You can even talk to it and it answers back. This is helpful if you don’t like its first response. You can ask it for more options, or to correct something that was wrong, and it will give you another response.

There’s no question that ChatGPT is pretty amazing. But will it soon replace authors? If you’re an author making your living through self-publishing tools like Amazon, should you be nervous?

Will ChatGPT Replace Authors?

A lot of people think AI tools like ChatGPT will replace authors. Is this true? Will ChatGPT replace authors?

The short answer is no. AI isn’t going to totally replace human writers. There will always be a need for creative human authors to provide ideas and prose that connects with people on an emotional level. Even ChatGPT admits this. When we asked it whether it would replace human writers, it answered, “While AI may assist authors in certain aspects of the writing process, it is unlikely to replace them in the near future.”

Whew! That’s a relief.

But experts are warning that writers using AI writing tools will most likely replace writers not using them. So instead of worrying about AI taking jobs, why not dig into what these tools can do for you?

Let’s take a look at how everyday writers are working smarter not harder with AI writing tools like ChatGPT, Frase, Jasper and Rytr.

Level Up Your Writing Game!

Writing can be a grind—not for the faint of heart. But AI writing tools can be a really powerful way for you to get that writing edge you’ve been looking for.

Besides coming up with the words, these cutting-edge tools offer grammar and plagiarism checkers. Their editing tools can help you streamline your work, find awkward phrasing and suggest better word choice. And AI dictionaries and thesaurus tools can help you elevate your vocab game. You can also use your new robot friend to help with brainstorming and creating outlines for your work. Some are also asking ChatGPT to generate random phrases or words as a writing prompt to spark creativity.

AI also helps maintain a consistent tone and voice. It can adapt to the subject matter to produce high-quality prose that will still connect with readers. Some are even using them to write full-length novels that readers are actually enjoying.

And now you can have the power of ChatGPT at your fingertips with the new iOS app version on your smartphone.

In summary, here’s a breakdown of all the ways you could start using AI writing tools for your writing process:

• Researching topics
• Generating new and creative ideas
• Breaking through writer’s block 
• Creating outlines for articles, essays or books
• Develop characters, plot, dialogue and world-building
• Helping with proofreading and editing
• Writing content from scratch with your prompts

Get on the Cutting Edge!

Imagine the possibilities of publishing books faster than ever before, and with higher-quality writing. Imagine how much more royalties you could make if it only took you half the time it normally would to write a book. Imagine how much your life would change if you had passive income from five full-length books you were selling on Amazon’s self-publishing platform.

Don’t limit yourself. Dream big and leverage AI writing tools to achieve those dreams.

If you’re not already using tools like ChatGPT, what are you waiting for? You’re not necessarily late to the AI writing party, but it is a good time to start leveraging AI to hone your writing and save you time.

And if you’ve been thinking about getting into self-publishing, check out some free resources we’ve put together. You’ll learn how to use Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) to make money and reach your goals.

‍Our free webinar will help you get started on the path to self-publishing and financial freedom. You can do it without any previous experience or technical know-how.

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