How Podcasters Can Use AI & ChatGPT To Transform The Creative Process
It’s finishing students’ homework, spitting out song lyrics, and correcting mistakes in computer code. ChatGPT, the A.I. chatbot from OpenAI, has been stirring up mad controversy since its inception last year and it’s here to stay. Users from just about every industry imaginable are spellbound by the program’s uncanny ability to understand complex prompts and infer even the subtlest of relationships between words and concepts. It is even lending a hand to the podcasting space, where content creators are tapping into the AI system to write show scripts and generate compelling questions to ask guests.
To be sure, this is a powerful tool with pros, cons, and unforeseen consequences that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Many professionals are worried their jobs are on the chopping block, and if we’re being honest, these fears aren’t unfounded. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone working as a typist, switchboard operator, or scribe nowadays due to the rise of mobile phones and desktop publishing.
Professionals who want to avoid becoming obsolete will need to shift away from apocalyptic, doom-and-gloom outlooks to growth mindsets. ChatGPT isn’t an evil AI coming for your creative livelihood. It’s a learning opportunity. By automating tedious tasks and providing assistance with idea generation, AI can save podcast creators time and energy to dedicate towards what they do best: engage in meaningful conversations.
In fact, if you are a podcaster, you’re definitely already using AI.
The definition of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence. These include visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages. As a creator, it’s highly likely you owe it to AI for automating many of your day-to-day functions.
For example, when drafting your podcast scripts, do you use text editors and autocorrection tools like Grammarly or Spellcheck? That’s AI cleaning up your mistakes. How about subtitles? Do you turn them on when you publish a video podcast on YouTube? Behold the power of AI converting your speech into text. And when promoting on social media, does it seem like your target audiences on Tiktok and Instagram just magically land on your doorstep? You can thank AI’s algorithms for using keywords and tags to connect the right listeners with your show.
Though ChatGPT may seem magical, it’s still just an algorithm based on open source information. Its “magic” lies in its profound ability to digest huge quantities of data in milliseconds – way faster than any human brain can. This makes it an extremely efficient tool BUT NOT a replacement for human personality.
Here’s how podcasting humans and AI can join forces for the better.
Podcasters can use Chat GPT as a roadmap to strategize and get inspired. Often enough, the process of research, writing, editing, and search engine optimization steals away time from investing in the human-to-human conversations that make podcasting so worthwhile.
It may seem counterintuitive, but if you are experiencing a creative roadblock, ChatGPT might be your new best friend.
Here’s a brief list of ways you can use ChatGPT to revive your creative process.
1) Use ChatCPT to do background research.
Unlike Google, which works by retrieving lists of webpages based on search queries, ChatGPT uses natural language generation (NLG) algorithms to structure the results in a way that gives us direct answers. So, if you are wondering who Joe Rogan is or wish to know more about aliens, ChatGPT will tell it to you straight.
2) Use ChatGPT to come up with interview questions.
Because it can process an unimaginably large breadth of information, ChatGPT is great at coming up with personalized questions to ask people. You can watch an example of this Q&A process unfolding here as the popular podcaster, Pat Flynn, bounces off the chatbot for ideas on interesting questions to ask Tim Ferris during a hypothetical interview.
3) Use ChatGPT to discover new podcast topics.
Hanging out with ChatGPT can take you down many rabbit holes – and this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Perhaps, you start out asking it about the history of Rome and this leads you to become curious about certain historical figures and geographical locations. Somewhere along the way, you will likely stumble across some new fact or tidbit of information to bring into your conversations.
4) Use ChatGPT to draft podcast scripts, promotional copy, and show notes.
Of course, these drafts are starting points. You will definitely want to use them as just inspiration because, as seen in this video, script-generation tools tend to sound bare-bones and robotic. Then there’s AI text-to-voice software like Play.ht which can bring it to life in audio format. A recent infamous example of this was an AI-generated episode simulating Joe Rogan chatting to Steve Jobs.
5) Ask ChatGPT to provide you with constructive criticism.
Modern AI tools can do so much more than correct simple grammatical and spelling mistakes. If you want feedback on a piece of writing or other creative work, ChatGPT can provide insights on specific aspects of work, such as grammar, organization, structure, and flow of ideas.
Here’s how it told me I can improve this blog post:
I’ll admit, I took some of this advice into consideration but it’s no replacement for human feedback. If used wisely, ChatGPT could be a brilliant addition to your podcasting toolkit. But the important thing is to use it as a tool to support your creative journey – don’t let AI steal the show!