Use a picture. It’s worth a thousand words.
Usually attributed to the newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane (1864-1936)
As I add more posts to this blog some of them will be sharing personal stuff.
Posts about my family, life, home, what I’ve been doing for the last month, etc.
There anything too personal—I won’t post pictures of my wife and children—but I believe sharing chosen personal stories will help with engagement. And my relationship with emails and comments.
So, I came up with a hypothetical situation based on having a squirrel AND a rat living in my attic.
My story would be of hearing sounds, capturing images, on a trail cam that I’ve used in the garden to capture pictures of hedgehogs. And about trying to trap them, and finally giving up and getting pest control in because truthfully, I just couldn’t catch the little buggers.
So, I thought I’d experiment to see how/if ChatGPT and DALL-E could help with ideas for sharing future personal stuff.
Chat GPT Prompt: Write me a 200 word blog posts based on this: we live in a country cottage in Yorkshire, and we have been troubled by a squirrel and a rat in our attic space. We can’t catch it so we called pest control to help.
Chat GPT: Living in a charming country cottage nestled amidst the lush landscapes of Yorkshire is indeed idyllic. However, we’ve recently been faced with some uninvited guests – a mischievous squirrel and an elusive rat have taken up residence in our attic space.
These little critters have been causing quite a stir, scampering about at all hours and turning our peaceful abode into their personal playground. Despite our best efforts to catch them, they’ve proven to be rather crafty adversaries, always managing to stay one step ahead of us. Left with no other option, we decided it was time to call in the professionals.
We reached out to a local pest control service who assured us that they could handle our furry intruders swiftly and humanely. They arrived armed with specialized equipment and years of experience dealing with such situations. The team meticulously scoured every inch of the attic space, setting traps designed specifically for squirrels and rats.
As they worked diligently on evicting these unwelcome tenants from our home, we felt relieved knowing that soon enough, peace would be restored in our quaint Yorkshire cottage. While we appreciate nature’s creatures frolicking outside our windows, when it comes to sharing indoor spaces with them – well that’s where we draw the line!
The results of asking it for a ‘story’ based on a brief description were not too bad. But the result is fake, but it lacks emotion and feeling.
I KNOW it couldn’t be any other way unless I’d included more details, but if I did that, I might as well write the email/blog post myself, so honestly, I’m not complaining.
I have no doubt that some marketers will use AI to fabricate personal stories and accounts to increase engagement with their audience, but to me, that’s just fraught with danger.
For a start how would you get the AI to ‘remember’ what it had created so you didn’t trip yourself up or get called out for lying when the details didn’t match? You could possibly teach AI to remember details of your life so it can tell the stories straight, but this doesn’t sit well with me.
So I tried another Chat GPT Prompt: Write a 200 word blog post about having squirrels and rats in the attic and getting pest control in. In the style of Gary Halbert.
Chat GPT:
Listen up, my friend. You think living in a country cottage in Yorkshire is all about sipping tea and enjoying the scenic beauty? Think again! It’s also about sharing your roof with some furry freeloaders – squirrels and rats.
Let me tell you something. These little rascals are no joke. They’re up there, turning your attic into their personal amusement park while you toss and turn at night, listening to their party above your head.
You might think, “Hey, I can catch them.” Good luck with that! These critters are as slippery as a politician on election day. They’ve got more tricks up their sleeves than Houdini himself!
So what do you do when you’re outsmarted by rodents? You call in the big guns – pest control professionals.
These guys don’t mess around. Armed with state-of-the-art equipment and years of experience battling such pests, they swoop in like superheroes from a comic book.
As they work their magic, evicting these unwelcome guests from your attic space, you can finally breathe easy knowing peace will soon be restored to your beloved Yorkshire haven.
Remember folks: nature is beautiful… until it’s running wild in your attic!
I think it did a fair job. But it’s creepy, and I don’t like it. That might be because it’s written in a ‘borrowed’ style, and could I be accused of plagiarism? And I STILL wanted some form of personalization that could be AI-generated. Something that could help to make blog posts or emails ‘feel’ like they were truly personal.
So, I got onto images instead…(Microsoft Designer)
Prompt: Provide an image for a blog for the following post: live in a country cottage in Yorkshire, and have been troubled by a squirrel and a rat in our attic space. Can’t catch it so-called pest control to help. The image you create should reflect the blog post. The image should be colorful and cartoonist, but high in quality. It should also be funny.
And to be honest, I think that’s great. As a non-artist with graphics, Photoshop, and illustration challenges, it would have taken days, if not weeks to learn to the level above. No posts worrying about copyright infringement for images and thumbnails I’ve used. No warning letters about potential copyright infringement. No more trying desperately to find decent royalty-free image sites, or paying graphic designer freelancers to create them…
Before AI, I would have had to resort to hand-drawing images on a notepad, taking a screenshot with my smart phone, and uploading them to ensure I didn’t violate copyright.
So, I thought what other style could of pictures could AI produce?
Again another great picture. Same prompt, but with the image should be colorful and photographic.
Same prompt, except in the style of Gustave Courbet.
It would have taken me years to learn how to paint anywhere near that level.
Same prompt as before, except in in the style of John Constable.
All these pictures look pretty good, AND they’re personal. How much would getting an artist or graphic designer to create these images cost me? And that, (for artists and graphic designers), of course also makes this whole situation very sad.
Leave a Reply