Using ChatGPT for Technical Writing // ChatGPT Demo
Summary
TLDRThe video script explores the potential of ChatGPT as a tool for technical writers. It highlights how ChatGPT can aid in research, content outline generation, and technical editing, significantly streamlining the writing process. However, it also acknowledges the limitations of ChatGPT, such as its inability to write original content, the risk of technical inaccuracy, and potential outdated information. The script emphasizes that while ChatGPT can automate certain aspects of technical writing, the field will continue to evolve, requiring writers to adapt and develop new skills to remain relevant. Overall, it presents a balanced perspective on the transformative impact of AI tools like ChatGPT on the technical writing industry.
Takeaways
- 🤖 ChatGPT can be a useful tool for technical writers to quickly gather information and research a topic they need to write about.
- 📝 ChatGPT can help technical writers generate a comprehensive content outline for a project, which can save time and effort.
- ✍️ ChatGPT has the potential to assist with maintaining voice and tone consistency across documentation, especially for projects with multiple contributors.
- 🚫 ChatGPT cannot currently write original content on its own; it relies on existing information to generate responses.
- ⚠️ There is a risk of ChatGPT providing technically inaccurate or outdated information, so verification and critical analysis are essential.
- 🔄 Certain technical writing roles and tasks have already been automated, and this trend is likely to continue with tools like ChatGPT.
- 💻 Technical writers need to adapt and upskill to stay relevant as the industry evolves with the introduction of AI and automation.
- 🎯 ChatGPT can automate some repetitive tasks, allowing technical writers to focus on more strategic and creative projects.
- 🤔 Adopting a cautiously optimistic approach towards AI tools like ChatGPT can help technical writers better integrate them into their workflow.
- 🌐 The future of technical writing may involve a combination of human expertise and AI assistance, with the potential to enhance and transform the documentation process.
Q & A
How does ChatGPT assist in the initial research phase of a technical writing project?
-ChatGPT helps speed up the initial research by providing a quick, beginner-level introduction to topics, such as change data capture, without the bias of product-driven content, offering a solid starting point for further investigation.
Why might someone prefer using ChatGPT over traditional Google searches for technical research?
-ChatGPT can parse through numerous articles to provide unbiased, beginner-level information quickly, unlike Google searches that may return product-driven or overly complex articles.
Can ChatGPT generate a content outline for technical documentation?
-Yes, ChatGPT can generate content outlines by collating information across various sources, providing a solid first draft that reflects a broader industry perspective.
How does ChatGPT maintain voice and tone consistency in documentation?
-ChatGPT can edit content to make it more user-friendly and consistent with a specific style guide, helping maintain a uniform voice and tone across documentation.
What are the limitations of using ChatGPT for writing original content?
-ChatGPT cannot write original content on topics that do not already have existing information on the internet, as it relies on pre-existing content to generate responses.
Why is technical accuracy a concern when using ChatGPT for technical documentation?
-ChatGPT may confidently provide technically inaccurate information, requiring careful review and validation to ensure the content's accuracy and reliability.
How up-to-date is the information model of ChatGPT?
-As of the last check, ChatGPT's information model might be outdated, being trained on data available up until 2021, and may not include the most recent content published.
What impact could AI tools like ChatGPT have on the technical writing industry?
-AI tools might automate certain aspects of technical writing, evolving the industry and possibly reducing the demand for certain types of manual writing tasks.
How can technical writers remain relevant in an industry increasingly influenced by AI?
-Staying aware of industry trends, embracing adaptability, and continuously upgrading skills can help technical writers stay relevant and be part of the evolving field.
What aspects of technical writing does the speaker anticipate AI will automate?
-The speaker anticipates AI will automate tasks like creating content outlines, maintaining documentation consistency, and possibly some aspects of technical editing.
Outlines
🤖 Utilizing ChatGPT for Technical Writing
The speaker shares their experience using ChatGPT to enhance their technical writing process. They highlight ChatGPT's utility in speeding up research and understanding complex topics like change data capture, emphasizing its ability to provide quick, unbiased, and beginner-friendly explanations compared to traditional Google searches and product-driven articles. The speaker appreciates ChatGPT for generating comprehensive content outlines, such as for a project on managing airbag documentation, which saves time and incorporates a broad perspective. ChatGPT's role is seen as a complement to traditional research methods, not a replacement, particularly in the early stages of a writing project.
📝 ChatGPT's Impact on Documentation Consistency and Editing
This paragraph outlines how ChatGPT aids in maintaining consistency in documentation's voice and tone, especially in open-source projects with multiple contributors. The speaker presents a case where ChatGPT improved a verbose and technically complex document section, making it more user-friendly, though it still required adjustments for technical accuracy and best practices. ChatGPT is lauded for its potential to unify documentation written by diverse contributors, highlighting the importance of editing software in achieving a cohesive voice across all documentation. However, the speaker notes the necessity of further review for technical accuracy before finalizing the content.
🚀 Prospects and Limitations of ChatGPT in Technical Writing
The speaker reflects on ChatGPT's limitations, including its inability to generate original content on novel topics, potential inaccuracies, and reliance on outdated information. Despite these drawbacks, the speaker is optimistic about ChatGPT's role in evolving technical writing practices. They discuss the broader impact of automation on the field, suggesting that adaptability and awareness are crucial for technical writers to remain relevant. The speaker anticipates that ChatGPT will automate mundane tasks, allowing them to focus on strategic and creative aspects of their work. The video concludes with a call for embracing new tools to enhance the documentation process.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡ChatGPT
💡Technical Writing
💡Research
💡Content Outline
💡Voice and Tone
💡Original Content
💡Technical Accuracy
💡Information Model
💡Automation
💡Adaptability
Highlights
I have found that chat GPT can make the process of learning and researching a topic really quick for me as a technical writer.
Chat GPT gives an excellent starting point for me as a writer to learn about a topic that I'm supposed to write about, providing a beginner-level introduction that is unbiased from a product perspective.
Chat GPT can be helpful for coming up with a content outline, collating information from various sources to provide a customized outline in a short time.
Chat GPT can assist in maintaining voice and tone consistency across documentation, especially in an open-source company with many contributors.
Chat GPT cannot write original content for topics that do not have existing content available on the internet.
Chat GPT can give inaccurate or outdated information, so its responses need to be critically evaluated for technical accuracy.
Some technical writing roles will be automated, but the field will continue to evolve, and technical writers need to adapt by keeping up with trends and developing new skills.
Automation has already transformed certain aspects of technical writing, such as documentation layout, translation, UI help, and release notes.
Awareness and adaptability are key to a long-term career in technical writing, as the industry will continue to change with the introduction of AI tools.
Chat GPT can automate parts of the technical writing process, allowing technical writers to focus on strategic and creative projects.
Transcripts
I have been playing around with chat GPT
for a couple of weeks now to see if I
can use it as a tool in my technical
writing task and I have some interesting
insights to share with you about the
things that Chad GPT can help a
technical writer with and things that we
absolutely should not rely on chat GPT
to do and if you don't know what chat
gbt is just Google it it has been all
over the Internet for about a month now
so information about it is very easy to
find okay let's jump into it the first
task that I do when starting a new
project is to learn and research and
study the topic that I'm writing about
and I've found that chat GPT can make
that process really really quick for me
for example let's say I'm writing about
change data capture which is an
important Concept in data integration so
I can ask chat TPT to help me understand
change data capture so now it has given
me this write-up about what change data
capture is this is an excellent starting
point for me as a writer to learn about
a topic that I'm supposed to write about
so if I was going about this in my
regular way without chat GPT I would
just Google it let's ask Google the same
question what else change data capture
and then we have all these articles but
the problem with the articles on Google
is that they are written mostly by
organizations who have products to sell
for example we have this article from
stream and then we have this article
from five Tran and Rivery and rocket set
and Microsoft and all of these will have
information about what is change data
capture but it will have information
about how change data capture works with
their product we also have this article
from Wikipedia which you would think was
more helpful than like the product
driven articles but then with the
problem with articles on Wikipedia or
similar websites is that
they don't give you the beginner level
information this article directly
transferred to the methodology of CDC
and that's not what I want to learn now
because I'm not there yet you know what
I mean so for someone like me who just
wants to get a sense of what changed
data capture is chat GPT actually does a
fantastic job of going through all the
Articles parsing through all the
technical content and then figuring out
bits and pieces of it that serve my
purpose and it seems to be unbiased
information because it is not pertaining
to a particular product so this is a
very beginner level introduction to
change data capture that is unbiased
from a product perspective I think it is
an excellent tool to complement a Google
search when you're starting a new
technical writing project and
researching the topic you're writing
about I don't think it can completely
replace Google just yet and I'll talk
about that later in this video but I do
think this is a tool that is very
helpful for the research and self-study
part of the technical writing process
the second technical writing task that I
think Chad GPT can be very helpful with
is coming up with a Content outline so
for example the project I'm working on
right now for work for real is the
managing air by documentation so I can
ask
try GPT to give me a list of topics that
I should include in the managing airbag
section of our documentation it's
telling us to set up and configure
airbag connectors Fair creating and
managing data integration Pipelines
okay monitoring and troubleshooting the
pipelines managing schedules and
triggers managing data quality and
transformation managing access and
security managing performance and
scalability this is literally what I
would have come up with if I was writing
the outline for that section and
moreover it's not just one person's or
one team's perspective on the content on
the topics that people are looking for
it's literally trained on a bunch of
data integration platforms and it
collated all that information and
processed all that information to put
together an outline and customized it
for air byte which is again something I
would have done right I always read
competitor documents or documents from
Allied products in the data ecosystem to
get insight into what topics are people
discussing and asking questions about so
it basically did all that work and gave
it to me in like a minute or two this is
a huge Time Saver I would not rely on
this I would take this as the first
draft of the outline and then I would
take it to the engineering team and see
this team and the support teams and the
go to market teams and I would get their
input and rework the outline to make
sure we cover all the content that we
need for the users but this is a solid
first step in the process and then the
final task that I think chat GPT is very
very helpful for is maintaining voice
and tone consistency across
documentation and I have an example for
that this is one of our important
documents for airbags it's the postgres
source connector documentation and post
address is a very important connector
for us so we want to make sure that all
the content here is as polished as it
can be the problem with that is that we
are an open source company which means
people edit documentation and I don't
always know about it so we had someone
add this section to the documentation
and because I did not know about it I
didn't edit it so it does not follow our
style guide it is a little too verbose
it is a little too engineering speak and
it can be edited to make it more user
friendly so what I'm going to do I'm not
even going to copy paste the section all
I'm going to do is copy the link I'm
going to ask
Chad GPD
improve
the content and just give it the link
yeah this is a much more user-friendly
origin of the content but
it's still not following the technical
writing best practices like it's still
using passive voice this is still a big
Improvement on the content that we have
now and that's what I meant by it can
help us standardize the voice and tone
of the documentation across all docs
especially because we as an open source
company has so many contributors and
everyone has a different facility with
language some of our contributors do not
have English as their first language so
I think this is just a very good tool to
make sure that the documentation sounds
as if it's written by one person because
it will be edited by one software which
is chat GPT but definitely saying chat
GPT is a very interesting and helpful
tool to use in the technical editing
part of the technical writing process I
would not use this content as it is
though because I need to check if it
maintained the technical accuracy of the
original content or did it just like
word Smith the content but it lost the
technical accuracy of the original
content I'll check this response for our
technical accuracy I'll have the
engineer who wrote the original content
check it for a technical accuracy and
then I would incorporate it in her
documentation to summarize the three
tasks that I think chat GPT can help
Tech writers with are information
gathering and research content outline
generation and content checklist and
then technical editing let's now chat
about the drawbacks of chat GPD the
first drawback of chai triputi is that
it cannot write original content for you
the way chat TPT works is that parses
the internet and collects all the
information about the topic that you ask
about and it puts that information
through its algorithms and its AI
systems and generates a response for you
the prerequisite for that process to
happen is existing content right it
needs content and to feed itself and to
train itself on to generate the response
so if your engineering team is working
on a brand new feature that does not
exist yet and hence there is no content
on the internet about it chat GPT cannot
provide content for you you would have
to give it at least the first draft that
it can improve upon so that's the first
drawback of charge GPT is that as of now
it cannot write original content for you
the second drawback of chatgpt is that
you cannot rely on the content because
it might be technically inaccurate
that's one of the biggest criticisms of
chat GPT I have seen on the internet so
far is that it is very good at giving
absolutely wrong information very
confidently for example I asked chat GPT
how do you set up a descript connector
with airpipe and it gave me this big
write-up like a very step-by-step
procedure on how to set up a descript
connector with air byte we don't have a
descript connector for everybody yet so
all this information if you'll just look
at it it seems very valid and it will be
true if we ever develop a connector for
airpod but that's what I mean this is
all the inaccurate information about a
connector that does not exist but the
way it presents it so confidently it
makes you feel like it's giving you the
right information so you have to be very
very critical about the information that
it gives you and you have to do your due
diligence on that information and then
the third drawback of chat GPT is that
it's information model is pretty
outdated that might have changed
recently I need to check on that the
last time I checked chat GPT was trained
on information that was available
either before or up until 2021 so all
the new information that has been
published in 2022 has not been fed into
its information model yet so the
responses that you get from chat GPT
might have outdated information because
it does not have the information that
was published in 2022. those are the
three drawbacks of strategypt is that it
cannot write original content or it
tries to write original content which is
like absolute it can give you
inaccurate information and the
information might be outdated so having
run those experiments do I think
technical writing roles are at risk
because of chat GPT yes and no it
depends on what role we are talking
about I think some technical writing
roles will be automated but that has
always been true technical writing is an
evolving feel and some other part of it
is always up for disruption and
automation think about how much
technology has already automated away
certain technical writing jobs for
example back in the day when
documentation used to be in the form of
print manuals there was a whole industry
and a whole set of people who
specialized in the page design the page
layout the page setting the printing of
those manuals that industry does not
exist in the same form that it did back
then most of it has moved to a web-based
form now a more recent example is that
in the field of translation I saw this
very insightful thread on Twitter that
talked about how AI destroyed the field
of translation years ago this is a
YouTube comment that says I spent
Decades of My Life Learning foreign
languages only to see the translation
industry destroyed by AI inferiority of
the machine translations a few years
back did not stop the destruction of the
industry the machine translation costs
nothing and so the price for All
translation Came Crashing Down because
the Bottom Feeders used machine
translation most clients the bottom of
the pyramid that kept the industry going
did not care about the quality of the
translation if we expect that clients
pricing human made products will save
Industries we are being very delusional
the vast majority of clients will go for
the process that costs less it reminds
me of the better faster cheaper
framework which basically states that in
a capitalist society when somebody is
deciding to pay for something they can
choose to get something done either
better faster or cheaper you can pick
two but not three granted humans can
make things better but AI can make
things cheaper and faster and when you
give that option to companies who just
want document temptation to exist they
don't care about like the best
documentation their product can have
they just want documentation so they
wouldn't have to think about it like
just good enough documentation
we might see a day when AI might be able
to do that for us automation has already
taken over past that technical writers
were known for tasks like writing UI
help we have tools for that now writing
release notes again automated tools
exist even technical editing to some
extent with tools like grammarly I do
think this trend will continue where
parts of the technical writing process
will be automated and if that happens
technical writing as an industry the way
we see it now will evolve to a different
form that we will have to adapt to in my
experience a key to a long-term career
in technical writing is awareness and
adaptability keep up with the trends be
very open-it about where the industry is
going what tools are coming up what are
the people doing what a company is
willing to spend money on and then level
up your skill set and your experience to
make sure that you will be part of the
next evolution of the field and not left
behind the near future how I see this
personally affecting my career is that I
think it will automate some parts of my
technical writing process and that's
good because it means that I don't have
to spend time on the task that I don't
like and then I can focus on like the
big picture strategic creative projects
overall I'm very excited about using
chat GPT and other tools in my everyday
technical writing tasks and I'm
cautiously optimistic about the ways in
which these tools can transform the
field of documentation and technical
writing that's all for this video I hope
this was interesting and I'll see you in
the next one
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