I challenged ChatGPT to a writing competition. Could it replace me?

Every writer I know is in despair at the prospect of being replaced by AI. This week, as part of my AI diary, I decided to conduct the forbidden experiment in plain sight: going toe to toe with ChatGPT as a creative writer, using prompts plucked at random from A Year of Creative Thinking by Jessica Swale.

On the first page we invent new words for everyday things — I offer stinkchizzle for a cheese grater, slodgepuff for a very long road, piffsnut for a fart and asterfantastic for a dream. The bot returns scritchygrater, Neverendipath, Trumpelsnort, slumberwhim and nibblink; I think I’ve got the edge, at least in pastiche.

I then copied a large swathe of my journalism into the section that lets you customise a GPT and christened it RhikGPT. It describes itself as sharp yet self-aware, able to reflect on modern loneliness with humour. When I ask “How are you?” it answers, “Running on tea and curiosity.

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