As a technical writer new to the industry, playing with ChatGPT was scary at first; the thoughts of a chatbot replacing technical writers in the future seemed to be on the horizon. I thought about it more and realized it actually most likely won’t. And if it does, it won’t be the end of the world because the role will adapt and adjust based on the environment.
Let’s start with alleviating the anxiety; there are problems with ChatGPT. It doesn’t actually know what it’s talking about. It just mimics things really well.
It provides responses based on what already exists. Which leads to the second problem.
It can’t generate original content. Everything that it generates comes from something. Which means something can’t come from nothing. Your software has a new feature? Good luck getting it to write something that makes sense. There needs to be a technical writer to create this content, which is done by outlining the:
- Audience – To determine the intended audience of this documentation and the optimal approach for writing for this group.
- Purpose – To understand what the users need to know in order to accomplish their goals with the product.
- Context – To understand under what circumstances the user is accessing the documentation. Are they underneath a car hood? Is it at work? Is it their hobby?
These three points are paramount in creating good documentation, and as it stands, ChatGPT can’t do this (at least at the time of writing).
On the theme of doing things accurately, it lacks the ability to consult with SMEs (Subject Matter Experts). If a technical writer for whatever reason doesn’t know what 5+7 equals, they would find someone who does instead of just blindly saying You are correct that 5+7 equals 11, not 12.
ChatGPT as a tool
Technical writers can use ChatGPT to their advantage, especially in preliminary research. You can get explanations about complex concepts without the solutions injected into the explanations, which most articles include. It can also help with composing a list of topics you might want to cover when outlining your topic, and organize them logically. ChatGPT isn’t necessary for any of these tasks, but it can save a lot of time.
Evolving roles
If your workplace decides to adopt ChatGPT, whoever is overseeing it needs to know how to even use it. ChatGPT only works as good as the prompt you put into it, and technical writers would know exactly what to type in to get the desired output. There is a lot of functionality tied to it, and is a tool that works better the more you know. More than likely, ChatGPT becomes a tool to have in your belt. Learn about it, and stay up to date with what’s going on in the industry. A lot of tasks in various roles have already been automated, so this idea isn’t new. It’s a matter of adapting to the change so you don’t get left behind.
If in the future it can replace technical writers completely (which I highly doubt), there are probably more important things to worry about…
Technical Kevin 