ChatGPT is all the rage. It’s also the reason why you now matter even more than ever.

As an oversimplified definition, Chat GPT uses artificial intelligence like Siri on your iPhone or your Alexa smart speaker. It is just much more powerful.

GPT is short for Generative Pretrained Transformer.

We’ll get into a deeper definition in a bit.

What I want you to understand is the impact it will have on your podcast.

NOT ALL INFO

Your podcast cannot simply be information. ChatGPT has nearly all the information anyone could ever need. It is the depth of the internet with the conversation of Alexa.

It was an early Monday morning in March of 1995. I had just started my new job as Program Director of an alternative radio station in Lincoln, Nebraska.

I was standing in the jock lounge. It was basically an open room with a countertop around the perimiter. All the DJs kept their stuff in there.

Sitting on the countertop was a big, bulky, desktop computer. It was primarily used to schedule music logs for the stations.

However, this particular computer was connected to the World Wide Web. The mid-90s was when the internet really started taking off.

We would pull up a site called Webcrawler. It was the first search engine to be widely used. It was also the first to fully index the content on web pages.

One of the primary investors in Webcrawler was Paul Allen of Microsoft. But, we’ll get to that connection in a minute.

As we played with Webcrawler, we could find anything we wanted. I typed in all sorts of words and phrases to see what would come up. Baseball, bullfrogs, blues music. It was all there.

IT’S ABOUT TO CHANGE

And that’s when I realized the world was about to change. The Encyclopedia Britannica set and the World Books we had in the basement of my mom’s house were no longer relevant.

Why would I search the encylopedia when I could use Webcrawler?

Now, I know you’re probably thinking the use of an encyclopedia sounds ludacris. Or I just sound old. Either way, it was the dawn of a new day.

This also meant my radio show could no longer be the interesting bits of trivia or music news I typically shared. I would need to serve my listeners something Webcrawler couldn’t.

That something turned out to be me, my story and my personality. Webcrawler couldn’t copy that.

Rather than sharing the tidbit that Bob Mould was once a member of Husker Du and then of Sugar, I needed to talk about the strange sounds coming from the apartment next door last night or the time Ozzy Osbourne wouldn’t stop talking to my girlfriend.

Thanks to Webcrawler and the World Wide Web in 1995, it was indeed a different world and time for a new approach.

HERE WE GO AGAIN

And that’s where we are again today.

ChatGPT has the information. If you are only serving information on your podcast, you are the new version of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

This new artificial intelligence tool can serve up the exact same information you are delivering. Only ChatGPT does it in less time.

Let’s say you teach how to write code for computers. I can ask ChatGPT how to write computer code. ChatGPT can now only write code, it can debug it.

You need to move into your new world.

Share your story. Give listeners your personality. Build relationships. Offer something more that ChatGPT cannot give your audience.

WHAT IS CHATGPT?

So, what is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI. They are a startup based in San Francisco. The company was co-founded in 2015 by Elon Musk and Sam Altman.

OpenAI also has other backers and investors. One of those investors happens to be Microsoft, just like Webcrawler.

The OpenAI website says, “We’ve trained a model called ChatGPT which interacts in a conversational way. The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer followup questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests.”

In regular language, the tool is like Alexa on steroids. It is capable of taking inputs from users and producing human-like responses. The thing that makes it different is the ability of ChatGPT to learn and adjust according to the conversation.

CNBC asked ChatGPT to give its own description. ChatGPT said it is “an AI-powered chatbot developed by OpenAI, based on the GPT (Generative Pretrained Transformer) language model. It uses deep learning techniques to generate human-like responses to text inputs in a conversational manner.”

Microsoft isn’t simply an investor in the company.

According to Fox Business, Microsoft has added the technology to its products, including search engine Bing.

GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT

ChatGPT does have some serious limitations. The biggest concern is misinformation and infringing on intellectual property.

ChatGPT is trained on a vast compilation of articles, websites and social-media posts scraped from the internet as well as real-time conversations. As you know, the information on the internet isn’t always perfect. Therefore, the information coming out of ChatGPT also isn’t flawless.

According to Business Insider, Chat bots like GPT are powered by large amounts of data and computing techniques to make predictions. Those predictions string words together in a meaningful way.

These chat bots not only tap into a vast amount of vocabulary and information, but also understand words in context. This helps them mimic speech patterns while offering up an encyclopedic knowledge.

It’s just like my day with Webcrawler.

Unlike most chatbots and your Alexa, ChatGPT remembers previous prompts given to it in the same conversation. It learns as it goes.

ChatGPT has the ability to log context from earlier messages in a thread. The tool can then use that information to form responses later in the conversation.

Inputs are filtered so potentially racist or sexist prompts are dismissed. OpenAI believes this should prevent offensive outputs from being presented to and produced from ChatGPT.

Although the core function of a chatbot is to mimic human conversation, ChatGPT is versatile. For example, it can write and debug computer programs, compose music, and write student essays. ChatGPT can answer test questions, write poetry, and simulate an ATM.

Can you see where the concern might come in?

The tool has sparked concerns over potential abuses in many of these areas. Students have already used ChatGPT to generate entire essays, while hackers have used it to write code for the bad guys.

CHATGPT GETTING BIGGER

It’s only getting bigger.

ChatGPT is growing faster than any other app.

By January 2023, ChatGPT had amassed 100 million monthly active users. That was only two months into its launch. That skyrocking growth also made ChatGPT the fastest-growing consumer application in history, according to UBS.

It took TikTok nine months to reach 100 million users. Instagram didn’t hit 100 million for two and a half years.

If you have an Open AI account, you can try ChatGPT for free while they test it and it learns.

Find OpenAI at OpenAI.com.

MORE YOU

So, how do you stay relevant on your show?

There are 3 ways.

STORIES

First, tell stories. Everything interesting is about people.

Stop teaching your six steps to success. Be you. Share something as if you were telling your best friend.

Stories sell. People remember stories. Stories make you human.

It is also the most powerful way to build relationships.

PERSONALITY

Next, let your personality shine.

You don’t need to be Howard Stern or Gary Vaynerchuk. You just need to be you.

Stand for something and stand out.

If I asked a group to rate you on a one to five scale and they all gave you a three, you would be dead in the water. Three means I could take it or leave it. I really have no preference.

Lots of fives and lots of ones mean you are making people care.

Get noticed.

AUTHENTIC

Finally, be authentic. Don’t try to be someone or something you are not.

When I was coming up in radio, I learned this the hard way.

It was a few years before the Webcrawler incident. I was doing nights at that same radio station. We had just signed it on a few months earlier.

It was late afternoon and I was sitting in the office of my Program Director for my weekly show review. We would review a recording of my show once a week to help me improve.

Her office was right next to the studio. My show started at 7. We were meeting at 4.

As the tape played, it was a typical show. Nothing crazy. Same sorts of breaks I always did.

Melinda sat there listening, not saying anything. She was just taking it in.

Finally, she reached over and turned it off. She looked at me and said, “When are you going to start being yourself?”

I asked her what she meant.

She said, “You are using all these phrases and words and cliches that the guys on the rock station use. That’s not you. It’s not even our station. Why don’t you leave that to them and just start being real?”

Now, I worked on the rock station before moving over to this one. So I still had a little of the rock in me. But the truth is… that wasn’t me then either.

That was the night I started sharing my authentic self on the radio. It was also the day my radio career started to take off.

Instead of being a poor imitation of some other DJ, I was now crafting my own personality. It was something nobody could copy. I was becoming one of a kind.

YOUR CHOICE

You can do it as well. Just be true to yourself.

So, now you have a choice. You can continue to deliver information episode after episode and end up fading away like the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Or you can share a little bit of you on every episode and build long-lasting, powerful relationships with your listeners.

If you would like help developing stories for your show, grab my Story Development Worksheet at www.PodcastTalentCoach.com/story.

Developing your personality is a little more involved. I would love to help you walk through that process.

We can talk about that during your Podcast Strategy call. It is my gift to you. No charge. We just develop a powerful strategy for your show.

Go to www.PodcastTalentCoach.com/apply, click the button and apply to have a chat with me. We will develop your plan and see how I can help and support you to achieve your podcast goals.