Can I Use ChatGPT To Write My Speech?

You need to write a speech but you don’t know where to start, or your pressed for time, or you just don’t feel like putting pen to paper.

Then the thought occurs to you: “I could just let ChatGPT do this for me!” It’s tempting, isn’t it? After all, it does produce eerily human responses, and apparently everyone’s doing this anyway….”

Well, my friend, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. In this episode of Communication Q&A, I give my honest opinion on why you should avoid using ChatGPT to write your speeches.

 

Watch the full video below!  Is the embedded video being fussy? Click here to watch it on my YouTube channel (please remember to click the ‘like’ button and subscribe – it helps others find my videos).  Prefer reading to watching? Scroll down for the full transcript.

 

Links to related content:

• Legal Eagle – How to Use ChatGPT to Ruin Your Legal Career: https://youtu.be/oqSYljRYDEM
• Bernard Marr – ChatGPT: What Are Hallucinations And Why Are they A Problem For AI Systems: https://bernardmarr.com/chatgpt-what-are-hallucinations-and-why-are-they-a-problem-for-ai-systems/
• New York Times – Here’s What Happens When Your Lawyer Uses ChatGPT: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/27/nyregion/avianca-airline-lawsuit-chatgpt.html
• New York Times – The ChatGPT Lawyer Explains Himself – https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/08/nyregion/lawyer-chatgpt-sanctions.html

 

TRANSCRIPT

Is ChatGPT a good thing for speeches? Insert automatically generated response here!

 

Welcome to communication Q&A, folks, my name is Lauren Sergy, and someone has given me a very timely and…provoking question:

 

Hi Lauren – what are your thoughts on using Chat GPT for writing speeches?

Mark

 

Mark, did you intend on putting a big ol’ pile of Lauren catnip right in front of me?  Ok, let’s go. Where to start?

Well, let’s start with an assumption: for the sake of this video, I’m going to assume that you’re asking if it’s ok to have ChatGPT create whole-cloth speeches for you, or at the very least to do the bulk of your speech writing.

To which I say….HUNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGHHHH.

 

To explain my response, let’s summarize what ChatGPT is. Simply put, it’s a language imitation program that responds to questions in a way that sounds “real.” It creates its answers based on huge amounts of training data that programmers put into it. It does not reason, it does not invent, it doesn’t even ask you to for clarification if you ask it a nonsense question. It might be a form of Artificial Intelligence, but the key word here is “artificial”. It can’t actually THINK for you.

And that’s where we run into my first big bugbear with using this for creative work: You can’t trust it’s output. ChatGPT’s answers are

1. Subject to whatever biases the programmers may have put into the training data, and

 

1. You may have heard about ChatGPT and AI ‘hallucinations.’ Technology futurist Bernard Marr gives a great explanation on hallucinations:

‘Hallucination in AI refers to the generation of outputs that may sound plausible but are either factually incorrect or unrelated to the given context. These outputs often emerge from the AI model’s inherent biases, lack of real-world understanding, or training data limitations. In other words, the AI system “hallucinates” information that it has not been explicitly trained on, leading to unreliable or misleading responses.’

 

In other  words, if the program doesn’t have reliable training data that gives explicit answers to your question, then it’s just gonna take the info it does have and make some stuff up, whether or not it’s correct.

 

There is a spectacular example of this in the case of a lawsuit filed by Roberto Mata against Avianca, a now defunct airline. Mr. Mata’s lawyers filed a brief with several relevant court decisions supporting the lawsuit. But there was a big problem: the citations were fake. The lawyers had used ChatGPT to research legal citations that would support their case. ChatGPT, following instructions in true computer program form, took a grabbag of actual legal stuff it was able to find in its training data – the names of judges, of cases, of plaintiffs, etc. and knit them together into fake federal legal citations that followed the standardized format.

 

You wanted a citation? Here ya go. This is a citation. Not a real one, but it sure does look like the sort of citation you asked for!

If you want to know more, I strongly recommend you check out Legal Eagle’s video “How to Use ChatGPT to Ruin Your Legal Career” – it’s great, I’ll post the link down below.

 

So, Mark, you’ll need to assume that when you ask ChatGPT to write you’re speech, you’ll need to fact-check the whole thing to make sure what it’s written is accurate. You can’t take it for granted that the results of your ChatGPT session will have any kind of reliability or sense.

 

The next issue with using ChatGPT to write your speech is that it isn’t going to sound like you. It will sound generically human, but it won’t carry your unique speaking style. As a communication wonk, I find that ChatGPT generated speeches and essays have about the same level of style as a very pompous university freshman. They tend to be overly formal, verbose, and really, really repetitive. Here’s what I mean.

 

I asked ChatGPT to write me a speech about how kitchens influenced society, and it gave me this.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed guests, and fellow enthusiasts of history and culture,

Today, I stand before you to shed light on a realm of human existence that is often overlooked—the kitchen. Beyond being a mere place for culinary endeavors, kitchens have been an integral part of our society, playing a profound role in shaping our traditions, technology, and social dynamics. As we delve into this topic, let us recognize the undeniable influence that kitchens have exerted on our collective journey as a civilization.

Throughout history, the kitchen has served as the heart of the home, the epicenter of family life. It is in this sacred space that recipes are passed down through generations, where culinary skills are honed, and where memories are created and preserved. The kitchen fosters the warmth of companionship and togetherness, instilling values of cooperation and unity among family members.

 

Are you asleep yet?

 

From a content standpoint, most of these paragraphs are just the same sentence reworked in several ways. It uses a lot of words to say very little, and doesn’t provide any substance to it’s statements.

 

But speeches aren’t just about content alone – style matters a great deal. And from a stylistic standpoint, it sounds like…well…a robot’s idea of what a speech should look like. Especially if that robot learned about speeches by watching Hollywood movies of old-timey politics or courtroom drama closing speeches. If this was performed as a satire of a speech, loaded with sarcasm, it might be usable, but not as a sincere speech. It’s…bad.

Now the type of output you get from ChatGPT does depend on the prompts you use. So I rephrased my original request to “write me an INFORMAL speech about how kitchens have infludenced society.”

 

And here’s what I got:

 

Hey everyone, gather ’round! Today, we’re gonna talk about something that’s close to all our hearts (and stomachs) – kitchens and how they’ve influenced our society. I know it might sound odd, but trust me, it’s fascinating!

So, picture this: Back in the day, kitchens were just small, hidden corners where someone prepared food. But oh boy, have things changed! Now, the kitchen has become the heart and soul of our homes. It’s where the magic happens – where we create culinary masterpieces or sometimes just epic kitchen disasters!

 

Boy, howdy, it sure does associate informal with southern old-timiness! And wow, are there ever a lot of exclamation marks! It’s super duper keen, folks!  It’s terrible.

 

Mark, ChatGPT doesn’t know what you sound like. It can’t possibly know that, so whatever speech it puts out for you is likely to come across as insincere or just plain odd unless you do some very heavy editing. Can you use ChatGPT to brainstorm ideas? Could it be a wall against which you could bounce your thoughts? Sure. But don’t use it to write your speeches. Most, if not all, the ChatGPT generated speeches and essays I’ve seen are – from both the content and style perspective – pablum.

 

If you want to write a good speech, with reliable information and points that make sense, created in a style that matches how YOU actually speak, you’ll need to put in the effort rather than outsourcing it to a bot.

There you go, Mark – you asked for my thoughts, and you got ‘em! I’m sure you can handle it if you feel differently.  And for everyone watching, what are your thoughts? I know a lot of people like using ChatGPT, especially for brainstorming or to deal with overwhelming work loads, so if you’ve tried it out, I’d love to hear your experience with it in the comments.

And if you enjoyed this little rant of mine, please click the like button and subscribe while you’re at it – it really does help out my channel. Thanks so much for coming, and I’ll see you on the next Communication Q&A!