chatter bot
Last Tuesday, I was chatting to a colleague about ChatGPT. A true early adopter, they fizzed with admiration for the amazing things the souped-up AI Bot can do (write a poem in nanoseconds, churn out a paper on Othello’s Desdemona). As I listened, I felt my head get hot.
I had recently filed a piece with Mr Porter.com about promising young athletes whose dreams of elite success were cut short, either by injury or the harsh reality of being released by their sports clubs for ‘not quite having it’.
It was a great piece to write. But what was even better was the chance to speak to athletes about their experience. The loss, not just of dreams but also identity, that happens when what you do has been so tightly connected to who you are since your earliest days. The impact of that loss on too many is deep, and sometimes fatal. And the lack of widely available, easy-to-access support is a matter that needs to be addressed by the governing bodies in sport that take young hopefuls into their charge by their thousands.
Perhaps a bot could have taken the ‘raw data’ I gathered for my piece and worked up a decent version of events. A piece that would have entertained and informed. There is, however, something in the process of telling a story that risks being lost as we rush to replace writers with bots: the listening. Creating the space for someone to speak and be heard. To tell your story to another person and feel their reaction to it and experience how they bear witness to it in their retelling.
In our DE&I work, we talk a lot about creating an environment where people feel they can speak and be heard. And the feeling of value and respect that comes from knowing your voice matters. It’s why inclusion must always accompany diversity. It is the key that unlocks the power in difference and the only way to ensure each wonderfully unique individual feels like they belong and can therefore contribute their best.
Telling stories is about letting people be heard.
It will take more than the super sonnets generated by ChatGPT to convince me that sharing your joy, pain, sadness and triumphs with a bot can equate to sharing it with a human.
