Content writer says all of his clients replaced him with ChatGPT: 'It wiped me out'

Photo illustration showing ChatGPT and OpenAI logos.

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• A content writer is turning to trade work after OpenAI's ChatGPT wiped out his business.
• Eric Fein told the Washington Post he was dropped by 10 clients who replaced him with the chatbot.
• There are concerns that advanced generative AI will lead to widespread unemployment.

A content writer is turning to trade work after OpenAI's ChatGPT wiped out his business.

34-year-old Eric Fein told The Washington Post that his largest client dropped him in March after it started using ChatGPT to write its content. Fein had nine other contracts at the time that were all canceled for the same reason shortly after, per The Post.

Fein, who charges $60 an hour for his services that include writing short blurbs for company websites and product descriptions, told the news outlet the business that had made up half of his annual income was gone almost overnight. 

"It wiped me out," he said. 

The AI-powered chatbot, which is free to use, can produce human-like written content in minutes but has a tendency to make up facts.

Fein was later hired back by one client who wasn't happy with ChatGPT's content but the income wasn't enough to support his family, according to The Post. Now the writer is turning to trade work, currently training to be a heating and air conditioning technician, and plans to become a plumber further down the line. 

Fein told the Post that learning a trade was more "future-proof."

Trade work is predicted to be one of the industries least affected by advances in artificial intelligence.

An early analysis from Goldman Sachs said that generative AI could significantly disrupt the labor market by affecting around 300 million jobs globally. However, white-collar roles in administration and legal industries were cited as some of the most at risk while trade work saw minimal impact from the new technology.

There are concerns the rapid development of generative AI will lead to widespread unemployment. Mustafa Suleyman, a cofounder of Google DeepMind, recently called for universal basic income to support jobs lost to AI.

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